A review by kimmag92
What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez

Did not finish book. Stopped at 77%.

I never like DNFing a book this far into it but it's not holding my attention to finish the last 90 pages. I think I would have liked What the River Knows better had it been written for an adult audience as I found the pacing to be really quick and I wanted more time spent exploring different plot points. For example, how did Ricardo end up in Egypt and why didn't Inez's parents want here to come to Egypt. The romance between Inez and Whit was unnecessary to the plot and their love was never believable. Having them be rivals to friends would have made more sense. Also, Whit reads like he's in his mid-30s. The magic was also unnecessary to the plot as it felt like a copout for not being able to write the mystery. Lastly, and this annoyed me big time, was the inclusion of the Kodak camera. Ricardo and Abdullah run a very tight and professional dig and if they wanted their finds photographed they would have used a glass plate camera as the quality of the negative was vastly superior. Though Kodak's were becoming more popular in 1888 they were incredibly expensive, along with the film. We are never told the economic standing of Isadora's family so it is hard to believe she would have owned one.