A review by avesmaria
Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

2.0

This book was a colossal disappointment. A nugget of poignant ideas about the intensity and lasting trauma of grief and unmet expectations, completely buried under ordinary writing, flat characters that were either nobly, perfectly moral or utterly vile but never in between, and a very small degree of magical realism/folklore that didn’t seem to know where to fit itself in a Jerry Springer-esque narrative about two families claiming a child found in a river.
Also I don’t think I really needed to hear about how one of the main characters jerked off as a teenager by fantasizing about sexy mermaids living in the Thames.