Books like The River

This book is a parenting manual.

The boy is every boy. He asks if they're still the good guys. The man says yes, carrying the fire. This transaction between a father and a son, stripped of everything else: carry what you're given, keep walking toward the promise, because it's who you are.

Everything soft has been burned off this book, and what's left is a father deciding, hour by hour, what he's handing over.

What intrigues me about this book is the way the author, Margaret Atwood, took the (Genesis 30) story of Jacob, who impregnated his wife's handmaiden to produce the children which his wife could not conceive.

She then puts herself in the place of that handmaiden and asks some serious questions. Was that handmaid even given a choice in the matter? What would have happened to her if she had refused? She then rolls the same idea forward 4,000 years to a pseudo religious society in which the sole purpose of handmaidens is to use their bodies to conceive and gestate the next generation for those whom they serve.

When novelist Paul Sheldon suffers a terrible car accident, he finds himself in the care of Annie Wilkes, a woman who claims to be his biggest fan and wants to nurse him back to health. But Annie isn’t pleased with the way Paul has brought his beloved series featuring Misery Chastain to a close. 

I love that we get a front-row seat to this unhinged author-fan encounter. Despite the horror that’s inflicted, readers—especially ones who are also writers—may take a perverse pleasure in seeing a fan have such strong feelings about a fictional character. 

Another component I adore is the way an author’s ego often causes them to overlook warning signs that would set off alarm bells in others who have a clearer picture of what’s really going on.

I’d read the reviews, so I was prepared for a great book. I wasn’t prepared to be thrown out of my comfort zone—but in the best possible way.

Mandel made me sit with what it really means to lose everything and still create something beautiful. It’s not about saving the world; it’s about creating a new dream and making it your home. I loved how it celebrates art, memory, and the strange persistence of humanity even when everything else is gone.

This book reminded me that hope is often raw, painful, and ultimately necessary.

This is an adventure! Turn the pages of this book to find waves and many kinds of waves: rogue, freak, and giant waves of the ocean and the people who try to surf them. I am a retired US Coast Guard officer and sailed many ships at sea. As a mariner we know of or have seen waves, some of them tossing our ships in the middle of the night as we try to sail home. Any number of ships have vanished in the ocean, quickly, with no time to put out an SOS call for help. This is a great book to learn more while having an adventure reading it from the safety of your chair.

This book is a favourite of mine to read aloud to young children.

The writing is musical with a predictable rhythm that young children enjoy. The story has a repetitive chorus that children instinctively chant along to. As children repeat the chorus, they feel like they are reading, which gives them a sense of achievement.

The story is full of fun onomatopoeia words that children love saying, such as swishing, squelchy, and stomping. This language also allows children to act out the words using their whole bodies, which adds to the reading experience.

The story is full of anticipation and just the right amount of suspense for this age group. This book will keep children engaged from beginning to end.

I adore this book.

Not only is it loaded with suspenseful moments, but the heartache, Pi’s incredible journey, and the masterful metaphor make it one of those books that will always be near the top of my reading pile. Even the side story of why Pi changed his name is written with humor and heart.

I am a fan of survival stories, and I’m also an animal lover, so the combination of animals playing such a huge role, coupled with Pi struggling to survive when the odds are against him, makes this a great read.

This book is based on a real-life tragedy – the deaths of five young Nova Scotia fishermen aboard the Miss Ally, a fishing vessel that was lost with all hands during a storm in 2013. Casey, a journalist and writer, has produced a moving synthesis in this work. He explores the lives, families, and characters of the young men who were lost, and recreates the community they lived in, effectively evoking the fishing culture, the profession’s unique dangers, and the economic imperatives and opportunities. Some may feel he judges the official emergency responders harshly but he is writing from the position of the community, which is always apparent to the reader. He explores the youthful over-confidence and bravado that likely played a role in the tragedy without pointing the cold finger of judgment. 

This book broke me open and sewed me back together. It’s a must-read if you’ve ever loved someone who was struggling with their mental health. Absolutely gut-wrenching, but still bursting with hope, this story stayed with me for weeks. One aspect I especially loved was seeing the friendship between the main character Caitlin and her deceased friend Ingrid through the lens of the past, while at the same time seeing her build new connections with the people around her in the present. The way her memories of Ingrid and the things she leaves behind informs some of her decisions in the present was expertly done.

This is one of my favorite YAs combining the modern influence of technology on art, friendship, and love. Quiet sophomore Ivy ends up becoming a semi-public figure at her school and the world after she starts using an app, VEIL, to help other artists and students who are asking for supplies and support. While her impact is meaningful and it all sounds well and good, her own creative steps have sent her on a more public, emotionally-vulnerable journey than she ever wanted or expected.