Book: The River by Mary Jane Beaufrand
Release date: February 10, 2010
Publisher: Little, Brown
From: Publisher
Summary:
Veronica Severance feels cut off from the world. Forced to move from the city to rural Oregon with her parents, she is haunted by loneliness and by the chilling sounds of the Santiam, the river that runs through her backyard.
Through the fog of isolation, Ronnie finds herself becoming close with Karen, a young girl who she babysits. But when she discovers Karen’s body on the banks of the Santiam, the victim of a supposed accident, Ronnie feels compelled to uncover the truth.
As she becomes increasingly obsessed with solving Karen’s death, Ronnie is led deeper and deeper into the woods surrounding the river and to the dark secret hidden within its midst.
The River is a darkly atmospheric story of murder, isolation, obsession and dark secrets that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.
*****
The River is not my typical book but I ended up loving it. The mystery, the murder, the romance, it was all so good. It’s the first YA murder mystery that I have read and I would love to read more like it in the future.
Veronica Severance doesn’t want to be in Hoodoo. She was forced to move there and she isn’t happy about it. Things only started to look up when she became friends with the little neighbor girl, Karen. When Karen’s body is found by the river, Ronnie knows it wasn’t an accident and she takes it upon herself to find out what happened. As she digs deeper, things start to come out and Ronnie finds herself in the middle of a situation that she may not make it out of.
Ronnie wasn’t someone I liked at first because she was whiny. She even admitted she was whiny. I liked her a little better after that. She grew up a lot throughout the book and I grew to like her a lot. She was easily relatable and pretty strong for someone who had just recently lost someone she cared about.
The murder mystery part of the story was really intriguing. I couldn’t guess until the very end who did it or why they would kill a little girl. It was pretty disturbing but any murder mystery is and this one wasn’t too bad. It was definitely toned down for the YA audience.
Overall, The River is an amazing book that I would recommend for anyone. There were a few gritty scenes but nothing too bad. I plan on looking for more books like The River in the future!
Writing: 9/10
Characters: 8/10
Plot: 10/10
Ending: 9/10
Originality: 9/10
Overall: 45/50=A-
Cover: 8/10=B-
Great review! I actually saw this one in BN the other day, but I was unsure whether I should buy it or not. Though now from you review, I think I’ll definitely be giving it a try because I love books that contain murder mysteries. 🙂
Great review! Sounds very interesting. I’ve never
read a murder mystery before, but this one sounds very
good. I will keep an eye out for this one =)
I became interesting in reading this when I read the summary, but I hadn’t heard much about it, so I didn’t add it too my list. Anyway, after your review, I will be sure to do so!