This book, The River, tops my list of best books read in 2019. The book starts off full of beauty and tales of friendship. Slowly, dread and fear creep in, both natural and man made. I read through the night, my heart in my mouth. Peter Heller's writing is clear and simple, yet the complexity of the tale and the emotions it evokes complex.

Things I liked about this book....there was some really great nature writing in here. I really enjoyed descriptions of the landscape. They were vivid and beautiful to read. What I didn't like...the book felt disjointed to me. There was the fire and the injured woman and the crazy husband and they didn't feel connected. I couldn't figure out what type of story I was reading. Unexpected personality changes in the characters just happened without explanation. There was no build up or story to make it believable. It's not so much that I didn't like the book, it is just that I couldn't settle in with it. I guess I just like more structure or form and this story couldn't make up its mind about what it was. I think perhaps I'm just not quite the right reader as I believe there will be people who don't notice the issues I mentioned and will enjoy it.

THE RIVER by Peter Heller is an engrossing adventure story that I read in a day. Two college friends, Jack and Wynn, are enjoying the canoe trip (on the Maskwa River near Hudson Bay) that they have spent so long planning when things begin to go wrong. First, there's a major forest fire that seems to be heading their way and then, there's the two voices (a man's and a woman's) they hear arguing in the heavy fog. This story has plenty of action, mystery and struggle for survival, but what makes it so special is Heller's descriptions of the characters and of the natural beauty around them. He says, "berry picking was like throwing a Frisbee around, or taking a walk up the orchard road, or jumping into the lake and then lying on the sun-warmed stones. It was an achievement-free zone which Wynn was coming to realize is where most of his joy happened."

Jack grew up with his Dad on a ranch in Colorado whereas Wynn's family lives in Vermont. Both young men are experienced wilderness instructors who love to fish, camp and simply marvel at nature; they trust each other implicitly. Yet, Jack has a more cynical, pragmatic side while "Wynn would bet all his chips on goodness. ... Like the fish who had no idea what water was: Wynn swam in it. The universe cradled him, it cradled all beings, ... step back far enough and take the long view and everything would take care of itself." Despite the danger and increasing tension, this trip allows them to reflect: "if one concentrated on one thing and then another – the good things in each moment – the fear wrapped deep in the gut seemed to unswell, like an iced bruise. Still there, but quieter." THE RIVER received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal and was chosen as a March LibraryReads selection. Highly recommended.

The River follows Wynn and Jack on their canoe trip down the Maskwa River in Northern Canada. They have been best friend since college and have been adventuring together ever since. Wynn and Jack's trip is interrupted by when a wildfire is started in the woods surrounding the river. As they try to out paddle the fire, they hear the voices of two other campers out in the woods. However, when they go searching for the hikers, they find that they have disappeared.
To be honest, I thought there was gonna be a Windigo lurking in the woods somewhere, mixing supernatural phenomenon with the natural. Wynn and Jack talk about this creature at several points throughout the book and I was pretty disappointed to find out that it played no role in the story. Without a supernatural element, the plot felt very predictable. It was easy to figure out what happened with the two hikers, which turned into a bigger plot point than the wildfire.

This book was a solid four until the end. The ending felt rushed and a bit random. One thing the ending has going for it is that I did not see it coming, but it left me entirely unsatisfied. Honestly, I wanted to throw my Kindle across the room when I finished this book.

The River is a book full of adventure and friendship. It shows what we can become when our survival skills take control in dire situations and it is 100% plausible. I guess, I wasn't really looking for plausible in the book, but that is my own opinion.

The River is an interesting book about two best friends that decided to canoe the Maskwa River in Northen Canada. This leisurely trip takes a different turn when they discover that a wildfire is looming. Then, they hear a couple arguing while paddling. The day after the man turns up, paddling alone. If this was the man they heard the day before what happened to the woman?

This book feels a bit all over the place for me. It was not really that thrilling until the very end. I did enjoy reading (and listening to the audio version at work) however, I never felt totally engrossed with the story until the very end. If the 2/3 of the book had been as good as the last part had this book been awesome. I only feel mildly interested in Wynn and Jacks endeavors after the man shows up without the woman and the things that happened before. The characters' thoughts and recollections just not always rocked my boat. The ending is something entirely else. That is one hell of a sucker punch. Sad and so bittersweet. I do recommend reading the book, the story is interesting and the right reader will love it!

Jack and Wynn have been best friends since they met during their freshman year at Dartmouth. Jack is from Colorado and Wynn is from Vermont but they feel as if they have known each other since childhood. They both share a love of the wilderness and, since meeting, had been wilderness instructors for an outdoor program and had also taken several canoe trips together. They decide to take a semester off during their senior year to take a canoe trip in a remote area of Canada near Hudson Bay.

Their excitement at the prospect of sharing another wilderness trip, however, is overshadowed by a sense of foreboding once they set out in their canoe. This trip feels different. As they continue on, a series of events propels them into a life and death situation.

The River is a heartrending novel about friendship, loyalty, and endurance with unforgettable characters. The sense of place is vivid. But the danger that Jack and Wynn face is palpable. It’s hard to put this book down as mounting tension, suspense, and desperation accelerate. The shocking conclusion will leave you stunned.

The River will appeal to readers of outdoor adventure and survival books. Don’t pass this one up!

Thank you to Alfred Knopf publishing, author Peter Heller, and Net Galley for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC of this outstanding book!

This was a wild ride. The book starts out slow enough, but soon you know things are going to go amiss for these two good friends taking a long summer to paddle through lakes and a river to the Hudson Bay. The first major sign is the smell of smoke. After climbing up a tree to get a look they discover there is a massive forest fire that will become a problem for them. Soon after they run into another couple of guys taking it easy, with whiskey and a motor on their small craft. It makes you wonder if the book is going into a deliverance type direction. But it keeps shifting.

That is what surprised me most about this book, it kept shifting like a river might. You suspect on thing is going to happen, or where this going, then it changes. There is definite action and a little suspense, but this is mainly a thoughtful book. With very little dialogue between the two friends, Wynn and Jack, they are both meditative. We get most information from thoughts in their heads.

One problem I did have with the book is the two main characters are hard to differentiate at first, since the book shifts point of view frequently. It's disorientating at times, particularly when you are trying to learn about who is Jack and Wynn. I was a good way in before I really could distinguish their different personalities and backgrounds, which is why the book rating went down slightly for me. Despite that this was a good book. I could see myself reading it again, now that I know the full story. It's one of those books you can re-read. A mark of a good book.

A pair of college friends set out on a canoe trip on a remote Canadian river planning to bond over fishing, books and their love of outdoors. But they quickly find themselves in a desperate and brutal bid to survive the wilderness in Peter Hiller’s The River.

Wynn and Jack knew there would be certain risks associated with canoeing on an isolated river, but a huge wildfire they spot raging in the distance changes their itinerary and they try to make a quick exit north to Hudson Bay. Along the way they hear a man and woman arguing in the fog and when the man turns up later, alone, their trip takes another, more desperate turn.

Hiller is author of the best-selling and masterful, post-apocalyptic thriller The Dog Stars. In The River (digital galley, Knopf), Hiller shows his talent at combining raw adventure with poetic and insightful writing. His novels ooze with humanity and he seems to capture perfectly the emotions and unique responses people have to adversity.

Published by Knopf on March 5, 2019

The River alternates a story of man against nature with a story of man against man. It is at times a wilderness adventure, a story of man against fire, and at other times a thriller that pits two young men against a human adversary. The novel deliver the pleasures of genre fiction while remaining a work of serious literature.

The young men have bonded over their love of the outdoors and their shared passion for reading. Jack and Wynn are Dartmouth students who work as wilderness instructors in the summer. At summer’s end, they are paddling along rivers and lakes on a journey to Hudson Bay. Guiding a canoe through storms and rapids is their idea of a vacation, risks balanced against serenity defining well-being: “life was about being agile in spirit and adapting quickly.”

Jack and Wynn eventually discover that they have a wildfire at their backs. They come across two men who are camping and try to warn them about the fire, but the men are too drunk and obnoxious to be concerned. Later, while paddling in the fog and rain, they hear a man and woman arguing. When the rain stops, they decide to go back to warn the couple of the approaching fire, but the man and woman are gone.

An undercurrent of tension comes to the forefront when they discover that the fire is larger and moving faster than they realized, placing them at risk as they approach the rapids that is their only route to safety. Before they can attack the rapids, however, they come across the man they saw arguing with the woman. He explains that his wife disappeared during the night.

Was the woman attacked by a bear? Was the captured by the drunken men, who seemed to be exactly the sort of scoundrels who would kidnap a woman? The unanswered questions create a heightened sense of dread that carries the story forward.

Man against nature themes work when an author has a gift for describing both the beauty and the danger inherent in a wilderness setting. Peter Heller has that gift. Man against man themes work when the author creates a moral dilemma for a protagonist to confront. In The River, Jack suspects that a character wants to kill them and is in favor of killing the character first. Wynn acknowledges the possibility that the character is a killer, but is open to other interpretations of the available evidence, and is less willing to attack without clear proof of the character’s homicidal intent. Do they take a life of a possibly innocent person to assure their own safety or to they risk their own lives to spare someone who might be innocent?

Jack and Wynn are similar in many ways, but are differentiated by their philosophy — Wynn believes in the essential goodness of people, Jack believes in himself. The novel suggests that there are reasons to admire both philosophies: Wynn is content, at peace with the world; Jack is more likely to recognize and survive threats from others. Their harrowing experiences test their friendship by causing each to evaluate the other in a different light. Has Jack been masking a dark side that speaks to his character? Is Wynn so Pollyannaish as to place them both at risk?

The River combines the intensity of a thriller with the careful observation, astute characterization, and graceful prose of fine literature. At the end, the story produces the intense emotion that only an honest examination of life can deliver.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Thank you Netgalley- this was a stunning read. Peter Heller is a master of the run-on sentence and I find it glorious. His words are stark and it is very impressive what he is able to convey with them. I felt this novel. I felt it in my bones and in my heart. As a wilderness adventurer, The River struck a chord with me that many books fail to. Heller certainly knows his stuff. I don’t think I have read too many books that really live up to their hype. Like... really, fully, 100% living up to the hype. The River does. I am aware this review is extremely vague. I’m okay with that, This is a quick read. Read it and enjoy it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read Peter Heller’s new book. This was a harrowing trip with two college friends on a river with a huge forest fire approaching. Though at first ominous and worrisome, the trip takes a turn, despite their preparedness and expertise, when they double back to warn some fellow travelers overheard arguing about the fire. The beginning of the book is an ode to the wilderness in which they are both comfortable, and to their friendship — they have found the best of a brother in each other. The later part becomes increasingly suspenseful and tense as Jack and Wynn try to help a hurt woman while avoiding ambush and trying to survive the coming fire. Excellent writing and sympathetic characters that are easy to love, Peter Heller’s hallmarks.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Two best friends, Jack and Wynn, have decided to take the summer to canoe the Maskwa River from Moose Lake to Hudson Bay in northern Canada. Both have been looking forward to their break from ex-girlfriends, work, school, and technology by hitting the water and living in the wilderness. Jack grew up in Colorado on a ranch, and Wynn grew up in Vermont, so they are both comfortable escaping into the wild and living off the land.

On their trip, they'd only come across a pair of guys in a small motorboat who were clearly inebriated, and managed to stay ahead of them. But then, while becoming increasingly more aware of a smokey-fog, Jack and Wynn overhear what sounds like a couple in a heated argument. Unable to help eavesdropping, they keep paddling by, and try to at least give the couple some space.

When the two break for camp, they decide to check out the lay of the land- and this is when Jack discovers that they are roughly 20 miles ahead of a raging forest fire. With no satellite phone or radio to call for an airlift, the young men have no choice but to out-paddle the fire. Their leisurely adventure has become a race against the clock. Then, matters get even more complicated when they realize that something happened to the arguing couple- and the woods become even more dangerous than they expected.

The pacing of the novel fit the character's story, going from a leisurely ramble with flashbacks of the past, to quick-paced action. There are times where the plot is a little disjointed, jumping from one scenario into the next, but it's not so distracting as to lose focus on the direction of the tale. However, what is bothered me is the point of views changing without clear indication that they were going to do so. Also, for some reason, I felt an emotional disconnect from a story that should be pretty emotional for the reader. I can't go into too much detail without spoilers, but there were only a few instances where I felt the emotional scenes come alive from the pages. I will say that there are some good twists and turns, and the climax of the story raised my opinion of the overall novel, but the ending was completely unsatisfying for me.

Overall, I'd recommend it for the outdoor/nature fans, for those who like adventure reads, and for those who are into suspense and thriller novels, but it was just an average read for me.

Wynn and Jack are the best of friends. They do everything together. They hike and boat and camp. Both are young and fit and use to the outdoors. Here, they are rowing down a Canadian river to the Hudson Bay. It's dangerous and they think they are prepared. A confluence of a raging forest fire, strange and drunken fellow explorers, and a mysterious couple arguing somewhere in the fog prove them wrong.

The writing style was not for me. There was a lot of detail about rowing and survival and fishing that I skimmed over after so many paragraphs. The backstories for Jack and Wynn also seemed out of place or awkwardly placed. I don't think they helped me understand the characters anymore than the story itself. The ending had some vagueness to it that left me a little hollow. Almost as if it were unimportant. Overall, I still did like the book in some ways and, depending on the reader, would recommend it.

Thanks to Peter Heller and Netgalley for letting me read this book. I also posted a copy of this review in Goodreads and at my new blog https://readeotw.wordpress.com.

I think the main problem I had with this book was of my own making. I thought The River would be a fast-paced thriller, a closed room mystery inside the grandeur of the wilderness. I was wrong. It's a classic adventure, a heartwarming story of friendship, and most of all a tale of survival. Once I realized that I liked it a little more.

I've never read anything by Peter Heller before, but I could tell by his writing he has a love for nature and personal experience with the subject. It made for a lot of very informative details, many which went over my head. This book reads more for the outdoor explorer rather than the casual fan. However, Heller does paint a clear picture of these two young men and their adventure and despite knowing nothing about canoeing or the wilderness, I could imagine their travels and felt like I was there with them under the dark sky and in the cold river. I liked the characters of Wynn and Jack and was very moved by their deep connection.

Jack and Wynn are best friends since their freshman year of college. Both are experienced outdoorsmen when they embark on a summer canoe trip in the Northwest Territories. This reads like a thriller with in-depth character profiles and breathtaking scenic descriptions. Facing danger in the vast aloneness of nature is, for me, far more terrifying than a city crime scene. Couldn’t put it down.

I loved The Dog Stars, and I love The River even more. This book is written with quiet power, and the story drew me in and held me all the way through - I read this book in about two sittings because I just could not let the story go - and it is still with me a day later. Wynn and Jack are so vividly real, and the story is told with gorgeous poetic language and rhythm. I did not want the book to end. It is a story about canoeing, and wilderness, and fear, and mortality and friendship. It is a wild ride down a dangerous river and it is about the beauty of nature despite its power, or maybe because of its power.
There is so much to digest, I will be thinking about this book for days.

A beautiful, gripping story of a friendship between two young men stuck on a river during a massive forest fire. There were plenty of edge-of-your-sear moments, but also plenty of tender moments. My only quibbles were:

1. I hate when authors make one of their characters “literary” - the kind of people who randomly quote poetry or allude to the fancy books they’ve read. It reads like an an attempt to prove how well-read the author is.

2. Of the six main characters, only one was a woman, and she was essentially a damsel in distress. I get that this was primarily a book about friendship between two young men, and not every book needs to be a feminist manifesto, but in 2019 this kind of portrayal of women seems outdated at best, and offensive at worst.

Despite those quibbles, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.

Two young men, Jack and Wynn, are the best of friends. They complicate each other well. Jack is a rugged, outdoors guy who was raised on a ranch in Colorado. Wynn is a large man with a sweet, gentle soul. They are both book lovers. They’re enjoying a canoe trip down the Maskwa River in Canada, happily picking blueberries and fishing. They’ve seen signs of a huge fire that’s on its way towards them but they have plenty of time. That is, they did have plenty of time until they make the fateful decision to return to where they had heard a man and woman arguing in an effort to warn them of the oncoming fire. They search for the couple but don’t find them. The next day, a disoriented man comes down the river telling them that his wife has disappeared. Has this man done something to his wife? Or did the two drunk men they had also passed have something to do with this? Should they return to the scene again to look for her with a devastating fire fast approaching?

Wow, this one certainly had my heart racing. The dangerous predicament that these young men find themselves in is a suspenseful one. But even more than that is the author’s brilliant characterization of Jack and Wynn. These young men have always been on the same page about everything but now they are starting to see things differently and are starting to split apart. Jack is suspicious of everyone and on the alert for danger, while Wynn believes the best of everyone and is harder to convince. I absolutely loved both Jack and Wynn and took their divisiveness to heart. I felt like I was riding down the river with them, even when they weren’t in the river themselves, as the author starts out leisurely describing beautiful landscapes and then the pace of the plot picks up faster and faster. This is pure entertainment as we watch Jack and Wynn battle with nature and the evil of men. I’ve read other books by this author and have loved each of them. The author is a contributing editor to “Outside” magazine and “National Geographic Adventure” and has a deep understanding of nature and is expert in his depiction of it.

Most highly recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

It’s hard to pigeon-hole this novel into one genre; It’s part wilderness adventure, part thriller and part horror story, with a bit of “Deliverance” thrown in.

Jack and Wynn share a love of literature, camping, canoeing and fishing. “They were best friends at Dartmouth, who had decided to take the summer and fall quarters off.” Fall was closing in as the two were reaching the last few days of their canoe trip on northern Canada’s Maskwa River. They do not foresee the trouble that lies ahead. But if there isn’t some sort of dilemma ahead, there isn’t much tension to the story.
Their days are filled drifting in their canoe, fishing for their meal, picking wild blueberries and long discussions of literature. The descriptions of the landscape and the animals puts the reader right there in the canoe with them.

The book opens with a major concern: “They had been smelling smoke for two days.” After setting up camp that night, they “followed a game trail to a ledge of broken rock…looking northwest they saw it…and they knew it was a fire.” It was humongous.

Time became more pressing. They had to reach the landing, several days still away, before the flames could catch up with them.

Further downstream, on a fog-shrouded night, Jack and Wynn heard a couple arguing. They decide against warning them about the fire. The next day, a man appears and stops at their campsite. He is alone, but looks as if he’s been beaten. Wynn, ever the trusting soul, believes the story the man concocts, but Jack isn’t buying it. He believes that the man killed the woman and would kill them if he got half a chance.

Jack and Wynn slip away, but they backtrack to look for the woman. Once they find her, it becomes a race for life as the struggle to reach civilization.

A heart-pounding read, except for one thing. Heller’s preferred format of chunky blocks of text kept throwing me out of the story. It felt like a self-published book where the author was trying to get attention by the unexpected format. It turns out that Heller formats all his books like that. Still, I found it highly irritating, and that is why “The River” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

This book was completely riveting! A buddy story, a canoe adventure, a thriller, and a mystery all wrapped up in one. An homage to the Boundary Waters of Canada, as well.
Peter Heller has a very lyrical writing style with quick, short chapters that set a brisk pace for this page turner.

#TheRiver #NetGalley

Review appears on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40216324-the-river
Also posted buzz about it on our podcast Instagram Feed: https://www.instagram.com/p/BtE2KUJndlA/
Full discussion about the book on our podcast Episode 69: https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2019/episode-69-