Scan barcode
A review by edgwareviabank
Knife River by Justine Champine
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Gorgeously written. I loved Jess's voice, the fraught relationship between her and her sister, and the tense atmosphere of her going back to her hometown. In fact, the "back to hometown" setting is the very reason I picked up this book, because I'm a sucker for mysteries set within this sort of narrative.
I still found the book a slog to get through. I was expecting better pacing - this is a REALLY slow going book. It's as if the author was overly worried with establishing sense of pace, when she could comfortably have achieved that with fewer descriptive passages. This all comes at a cost of the mystery that brings Jess back to Knife River, with lots of small clues and teasers across the book that come to nothing a few pages later. It's effective at getting across the anguish of a family living in doubt and grief, but not so much at keeping the reader's interest up.
I still found the book a slog to get through. I was expecting better pacing - this is a REALLY slow going book. It's as if the author was overly worried with establishing sense of pace, when she could comfortably have achieved that with fewer descriptive passages. This all comes at a cost of the mystery that brings Jess back to Knife River, with lots of small clues and teasers across the book that come to nothing a few pages later. It's effective at getting across the anguish of a family living in doubt and grief, but not so much at keeping the reader's interest up.