Review by aldoralos -- What the River Wants by Arthur Byrd

[aldoralos]

[Following is a volunteer review of "What the River Wants" by Arthur Byrd.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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What the River Wants Review


The soul of the river is a wonderful way to show the flow of time and how lives affect this flow. Author Arthur Byrd snapshots the life of Tom, the family patriarch, and also the other members of his clan. The pieces come together to show a hopeful, sometimes sad, but strong future for the Bradburn family. Author Byrd gives us a poignant story laced with high emotion balanced by quiet strength, intelligence and great love in the face of life’s challenges, twists and turns, like a river meandering, it draws in.

What I got most from this novel is the love of life, family and strength required to keep it from some harmful eddies or storms. Sharing the stories unique to everyone and passing them on to the next generation. Oral tradition is a highly important avenue for families to continue to know where they came from, why and how, with changes and embellishments given to and by the tellers of the future. Some things can be written down but largely a family history is oral.

One point that stayed in my mind is the numerous parts in each chapter, whereas, it may appear choppy at first glance, but for me the experience was logical. This made for a very pleasant reading experience generally. Easy to find your last stop as you read along. I honestly have nothing of negative note to complain of neither about the writing or style of composition. If you don't care for violence or dramatic incidences of that nature then perhaps this isn't the story you'd wish to read, although I must say, those moments were few and far between.

The only errors were very minor typos, less than 5 or word choices that aren’t clear errors, perhaps only slightly off tense. There was sparse swearing, like, “holy crap”, in the 1st chapter, part VII. This gives the book a very light PG-13 feeling, due mainly to violence rather than language.

Highly recommend you read this book. It’s a page turner if you like the biographic style and many parts, but also for the dramatic stories within stories appeal.

My rating is therefore 4 out of 4 for this wonderfully heartfelt, nicely written fiction tale. The poetry alone makes a great read, nicely touching on the characters lives for later sharing with each other, the love of words.

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What the River Wants
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