The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb... A Review

 

The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb

After the end of 12 pages I wanted to put this book down and never open it again. I was devastated. I am being dead serious. What happened in this book just ripped my heart out. Omg, how could I read on...

Wally Lamb writes about tough subjects. The last book I read of his was The Hour I First Believed, which was about the Columbine shooting. I remember being blown away by the book. Could I feel the same way about The River is Waiting.

When I did a google search of The River is Waiting, I came upon a FB reading group that had a discussion about the book after the post of one of the members with the line, "Turns out I won’t be reading past the first chapter. Anyone else?" 296 comments followed with the majority encouraging the member to push on. So I did.

The story continues with guilt, pain, and injustice as Corby Ledbetter, father and husband to two young twins tries to redeem himself after causing unbelievable heartache to his family. Okay. My pain from reading the first 12 pages dissipates a little and the story takes on a different demeanor, it turns into a story of redemption and survival... and then, at almost 300 pages the author has to, again, rip my heart out. The heart I somehow managed to put back together from the first 12 pages. All I can think is "Why am I reading this book!?".

But I continue (because I hate to not finish a book and I only have 150 pages or so to go)... and I finish the book... and I just sit there quietly. I was trying to figure out if I really liked this book. Yes, the book was good. Well written. Threw my emotions all over the place. Can we truly say it was a good read when it was so depressing. I was emotionally drained by the time I turned that last page. What I can say is that this would make a great book club pick. There are so many things that the group could discuss. And I imagine it would be a lively discussion too. There are so many things I want to discuss! I honestly didn't see the ending coming. After thinking about it more, I can't see it ending any other way. 

These characters will stay with me for a long time. They are complex and interesting. I unintentionally was living their story right along with them, wondering how I would handle certain situations. Wally Lamb is an amazing writer.

I wanted to give this book 3 stars for all the heartache it caused me, but I really can't. When a book takes you on such an emotional journey, where the lives of the characters really matter to you, no matter how depressing the story is, you have to acknowledge the writing. And the writing is at least 4 stars. The story, even though it was a hard story, was worth the read. 

**If you are sensitive reader, you should do a google search,"The River is Waiting trigger warnings" and read about these triggers first. I won't spoil the story by listing them here.

Published by Marysue Rucci Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster , June of 2025. 

The Sunday Salon... Happy Father's Day! And Great Books from BEA 2013!

 Happy Father's Day! Welcome to today's Sunday Salon! Imagine a virtual library, filled with bloggers far and wide, all talking about what's going on in the world of books... that is what The Sunday Salon is all about!

BEA, or Book Expo America, if the premier event for us readers! It is the "largest publishing event in North America", and it gives us access to what's coming from our favorite publishers and authors. It's so much more than that though. It gives us bloggers the opportunity to touch base with the community, meet other bloggers, meet the book publicists we love to work with and a whole lot more! This year I wasn't able to attend, but it didn't stop me from learning about some of the great books coming out this year. In fact, if you own a eReader, you can download a great preview, with excerpts, of some of the books the publishers are highlighting this year with Book Buzz 2013 Fall/Winter (Kindle) and Book Buzz 2013 Spring/Summer (Nook). Last Sunday Salon I promised I'd highlight some of the books I'm looking forward to, so... Here they are...

The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan... Moving between the dazzling world of courtesans in turn of the century Shanghai, a remote Chinese mountain village, and the rough-hewn streets of nineteenth-century San Francisco, Amy Tan's sweeping new novel maps the lives of three generations of women connected by blood and history - and the mystery of an evocative painting known as "The Valley of Amazement." Violet is one of the most celebrated courtesans in Shanghai, a beautiful and intelligent woman who has honed her ability to become any man's fantasy since her start as a "Virgin Courtesan" at the age of twelve. Half-Chinese and half-American, she moves effortlessly between the East and the West. But her talents belie her private struggle to understand who she really is and her search for a home in the world. Abandoned by her mother, Lucia, and uncertain of her father's identity, Violet's quest to truly love and be loved will set her on a path fraught with danger and complexity - and the loss of her own daughter.

I just love Amy Tan and her ability to effortlessly weave a tale that spans decades without losing a beat.  I also love stories that bring generations of women together, where we can see their differences and yet their strong connections that bind them no matter what. This book sounds like it's going to be a wonderful read and have all those qualities I enjoy. This has a publishing date of November 2013 from Ecco! Read more about it at Amy Tan's website!

We Are Water by Wally Lamb... After 27 years of marriage and three children, Anna Oh—wife, mother, outsider artist—has fallen in love with Viveca, the wealthy Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her success. They plan to wed in the Oh family’s hometown of Three Rivers in Connecticut. But the wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora’s Box of toxic secrets—dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs’ lives. We Are Water is a layered portrait of marriage, family, and the inexorable need for understanding and connection, told in the alternating voices of the Ohs. With humor and compassion, Wally Lamb brilliantly captures the essence of human experience and the ways in which we search for love and meaning in our lives.

Ever since reading The Hour I First Believed, I have loved Wally Lamb! His characters have such depth and his stories are so absorbing. He really knows how to write about what we feel deep in our hearts, and I have no doubt that We Are Water will be one of those great reads. We'll have to wait until Oct. 2013 for this one. Published by Harper Collins.

 On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee... In a future, long-declining America, society is strictly stratified by class. Long-abandoned urban neighborhoods have been repurposed as highwalled, self-contained labor colonies. And the members of the labor class—descendants of those brought over en masse many years earlier from environmentally ruined provincial China—find purpose and identity in their work to provide pristine produce and fish to the small, elite, satellite charter villages that ring the labor settlement.

In this world lives Fan, a female fish-tank diver, who leaves her home in the B-Mor settlement (once known as Baltimore), when the man she loves mysteriously disappears. Fan’s journey to find him takes her out of the safety of B-Mor, through the anarchic Open Counties, where crime is rampant with scant governmental oversight, and to a faraway charter village, in a quest that will soon become legend to those she left behind.

OK, I love dystopian fiction. This has alternate world/future world written all over it and we have the benefit of a very gifted storyteller and writer- Chang-Rae Lee. When I read The Surrendered, I knew Chang-Rae Lee would be one of my favorite authors, and so I am really looking forward to his newest book coming out January 2014 from Riverhead.

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill... Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.

Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”

Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.

I love a good thriller and I know this is going to meet the bill. Joe Hill is a master of suspense with some great books behind him to prove it. I just love the title of the book too! I can just picture that license plate driving along a dark and curvy road. Published by William Morrow (an imprint of Harper Collins) and this one you don't have to wait for... it's available now!

The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Loyd... Five years after her young husband’s death, Celia Cassill has moved from one Brooklyn neighborhood to another, but she has not moved on. The owner of a small apartment building, she has chosen her tenants for their ability to respect one another’s privacy. Celia believes in boundaries, solitude, that she has a right to her ghosts. She is determined to live a life at a remove from the chaos and competition of modern life. Everything changes with the arrival of a new tenant, Hope, a dazzling woman of a certain age on the run from her husband’s recent betrayal. When Hope begins a torrid and noisy affair, and another tenant mysteriously disappears, the carefully constructed walls of Celia’s world are soon tested and the sanctity of her building is shattered—through violence and sex, in turns tender and dark. Ultimately, Celia and her tenants are forced to abandon their separate spaces for a far more intimate one, leading to a surprising conclusion and the promise of genuine joy.

Doesn't this just sound delicious?! Mysterious, a sprinkling of suspense and a bit dark... This is the debut novel of Amy Grace Loyd and it has gotten some great praise for her writing. I haven't had the pleasure to sample this yet, but it is on my wish list! The Affairs of Others will be published the end of August by Picador.

Hopefully these books have whetted your appetite! The next few months are going to be great fun for us readers, so many wonderful books to crack the spines on! There have been some great books in the mail this week too! A special thank you to all the authors and publishers who sent these along to me! First, Author Mingmei Yip sent me an ARC of her newest book, The Nine Fold Heaven! Think of a beautiful seductress, ex-spy, and nightclub singer trying to reunite with her lover and baby, which all takes place with the backdrop of Shanghai. I love Mingmei Yip's writing, and expecially her characters. I started reading this right out of the post and am really enjoying it! Published by Kensington Books, this will be out June 25th! The Visionist by Rachel Urquhart, "where 15 yr. old Polly Kimball, sets fire to the family farm, killing her abusive father" and finds shelter in a Shaker community where things are not going to remain quiet very long. Keep a look out for my review! Thank you Little Brown and Co. for sending this along. Gabrielle at Picador sent along a couple of fun memoirs for me to read! Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down by Rosecrans Baldwin is all about how some things just don't quite meet our expectations. After a job offer in Paris, the city of Baldwin's dreams, he packs up and moves and finds out that the reality isn't quite what the dream was. With touches of humor and insight, along with some great writing, we go along for the ride. And she also send an interesting "memoir" by Sheila Heti entitled How Should a Person Be? where Sheila asks herself and explores the question of self. How do we determine who we should be? Do we really have control over? It's been called boldly original, funny and deeply intelligent, and I look forward to finding out for myself what Sheila is all about!

 What's on your reading plate this week?! And what are you looking forward to reading the next few months?! Share your reading picks right here, so we can discover more great books!

Happy reading.... Suzanne