Wow, what a story!!!! Whenever I dive into a book of over 700 pages, I have to make an investment of my time, have to be in the mood and it has to grab me at hello. I started reading this quite a while back and got thrown off when so many characters with confusing names were introduced in the beginning so I pushed it back to my to-do list. I kept looking at it in my library and I am so glad I picked it back up and got thru the beginning. There are few books that I have read that had me in tears at the end. The emotions this book pulls out is truly unbelievable. I became so invested in the Koski family. I will remember this read for years to come, and it will go in my top 5 of all time greats.  
Aino’s epilogue narrative of what she missed and her life, was by far the best I have read in a book for years. This book is a work of art, beautifully written, a family saga showing love, loss, determination, grit, sacrifice and I can’t even mention how much I learned about the logging and fishing industries in the early 1900’s. I was googling several of the terms used in this book to understand what they were talking about, such as a springboard, Wobblies or a steam powered donkey.
I cannot give this book the review it deserves. DO NOT be daunted by the size, pick a week that you have some time, dive in and become a family member of the Finnish Koski’s. You will not regret it. I found myself waking up in the middle of the nite and reading a few pages, I literally could not wait to get back to it.  
If you love historical fiction and a read that will stay with you, this is it. I was given the opportunity to read an ARC from Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for my honest unbiased review. This one comes in with the highest 5 stars I can give.

I really loved this book in a new to me author. The characters and location really and to the story. I can't wait to read the next one. This book keeps you guessing until the end.

I loved Matterhorn by this author, one of my top all time favorite books so when I saw that Karl Marlantes was coming out with another book I knew I had to read it right away. However, I didn't realize it was so long (!) so it took me forever to get the motivation to tackle it. A booktube challenge (Historathon) finally gave me the reason to jump in and while I didn't love it as much as Matterhorn it is still a really good read. I learned a lot about logging, politics, fishing and way of life in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1900s (and maybe not always all that excited about it) but most of all I became enamored of the characters as they lived their lives in this story. Marlantes has an ability to engage you with his characters whether you love them or dislike them...and yep, I really didn't like Aino, the main character, but she was still so well-developed that I felt my dislike was based on knowing her pretty well, lol. This book is long and maybe not always fully engaging because of all the many details surrounding the setting and the story but I truly felt a connection to the characters. They became very real to me and that is a mark of a really good story. Great writing as well!

This was an epic of a book. A long tome covering only one generation of the Koski family, through decades (1890's-1930's) and with some years closely detailed. It is a linear book, without jumping around in time, which I do enjoy in a book.

The detail in the book is quite remarkable. The writing is plain and straightforward and there lies the one major downfall of the book. The writing style was a bit flat and sometimes the descriptions were way off from what one may expect. Such as when our main character is an older woman, maybe in her 40s now, and still keeping up with the latest fashion and acting like a school girl, it seemed unlikely given how he never cared what people thought given her politics and personality. And it is with the women that was the weakest depiction, despite one being a main character and viewpoint.

Regardless of the faults I did enjoy this book, and give it a high rating. Perhaps others may be bothered more severely than I with its faults, and given the length of the book be more skeptical.

Deep River is a very moving account of immigration life and the sacrifice of leaving your home behind to make a new start in a new country. It’s a compelling story, well written and meticulously researched. A great  work of historical fiction that taught me something new. While this book is long, it is an educational and entertaining story. I appreciated the mix of facts and humanity. I learned a great deal about the lives of the early pioneers in the logging industry and the search for safer work conditions. This great book about a part of history I knew little about. I recommend it for anyone with an interest in historical fiction. I would like to thank Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of this book.
#DeepRiver #NetGalley

A very long but satisfying novel. Mr. Marlantes is is gifted story teller. Please go back and read his Vietnam combat novel. Stunning work.

This book had alot going for it, it just need to be trimmed by about 1/3. The story itself was intresting, I learned alot about Scandinavian immigrants to the Pacific Northwest, but the descriptions were just over done.

(Abandoned) I really enjoyed Matterhorn from Marlantes, so I was excited about getting to read his latest book. This is a family saga of sorts that follows three siblings growing up in Finland in the time of a Marxist Russian occupation. After their father is arrested in the midst of political unrest, they decide to pack up and head to America with hopes of starting new lives. This was a book that I was not able to finish. In fact, I made it less than halfway through. While our three protagonists were interesting characters, I didn't connect with any of them individually, only the relationship between the three of them. I found the plot to lacking in direction. The book is over 700 pages (Marlantes writes chunkers) and I just couldn't get into it. Perhaps I'll pick it up and find it easier to enjoy at another time, but for not, I need to set this one aside. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately I only had time to read about 150 pages before my download expired, but I think I'll seek this book out in an audio format to finish on the road.

At 820 pages, covering 76 years (1893 till 1969) and almost three generations, Deep River is a saga.....a saga of the Koski siblings, Ilmari, Matti and Aino, who one by one flee Russian occupied Finland, at the turn of the 20th century, and come to United States of America to settle down between Washington and Oregon, in the Finnish communities of the Columbia River basin where the main mode of employment is either working in horrendous conditions for the logging and fishing companies or farming your own land. This book is a story of their fortunes and misfortunes, beliefs, dreams, aspirations, hard work, success, failure, love, regrets....through their and many other characters' eyes and experiences we see that life in 'the land of the free' wasn't as golden, rosy and free as it was made out to be, especially for immigrants who had to fight every step of the way for their basic rights.

This book is huge and it did take a bit of time and patience to get through it but by the end of it, I felt it was worth it.

My thanks to NetGalley, Atlantic Monthly Press and the author Karl Marlantes for providing me with an e-Arc of the book.

Deep River is a well rounded, epic story that spans the course of many decades. The story follows the lives Matti, Imari and Aino Koski. The Finnish brothers and sister fled their native Finland after facing escalating persecution at the hands of the Russian’s. Aino is an outspoken socialist, and her mother sends her to follow her brothers to America after she is picked up and tortured by the Russians. Isolated away from all they know, the siblings must adapt to their new home and find a way to live and thrive. At the heart of it all is a large river nicknamed Deep River. The River acts as an anchor keeping the siblings grounded and sustained as they embark on their own individual journeys of attaining the American dream. The story is a rollercoaster of highs and lows as we follow the Koski’s through their lives. The novel is on the long side, but it is needed to give us the a rounded, developed story that this kind of novel requires. Definitely worth the time to read it.

This book is very dense-- it took me a looong time to read it.  I wasn't fully invested in the characters, either.  I think that this is for history buffs.

When I was a young teen, I remember spending hot summer days immersed in the huge historical novels of Michener and Uris.  For hours, I would be caught up in their magnificent world-building, only emerging for meals and sleep.

I had the same experience with Deep River.  At a weighty 700+ pages, there is much to enjoy.  Marlantes takes us inside the logging and fishing industries of the Pacific Northwest, and the political radicalism at the turn of the century.  Told as the story of a Finnish family who left the old country at the point of Russian guns, the book winds through their intertwined hard-scrabble lives.

This is easily a 4 star novel for me, and based on the reports of others, I need to go back and read Marlantes’ earlier “Matterhorn”.

Who knew that Finns have such a long and proud history of immigration to America?

Certainly not I: in fact, this whole book was an eye-opener. By turns passionate, informative and political, this book is definitely a stonking piece of fiction, and hats off to Karl Marlantes for tackling such a huge topic over the course of one single novel.

Deep River is the story of the Koski siblings: Ilmari, Aino and Matti, who emigrate from Finland to America one by one in order to escape political persecution and build a new life for themselves. They do that in the timber industry, and most of this book (which spans a huuuuuge four decades) charts the family’s attempts to find their way in a new and evolving country.

More than anything else, this book was a history lesson. I had no idea that Finland used to be occupied by Russia and also Sweden, that so many Finns left for America (hundreds of thousands of them, apparently) and that lots of them were so politicised. Along with Ilmari and Matti’s deep dive into the logging industry, the book also charts Aino’s passionate struggle to bring socialism and fairer working rights to America, and her attempt to set up some of the first trade unions in the country.

That was fascinating. However, there was no getting away from the fact that this book is lo-o-o-ng. Probably a tad too long, because I felt moments where my attention started to wander and I began to flick through pages at a slightly-faster rate than usual, just to say that I’d finally cleared the 50% mark. It’s no easy task, condensing so much history into one book, but I think it might have been better as a duology.

What else? I loved the characters: they felt real and made mistakes just like anybody else. Also, people died Game-of-Thrones style in this book; you really couldn’t tell who’d make it to the end and who wasn’t going to. As far as the main characters went, Aino was a little bit too Marmite for me- her reckless devotion to the cause meant that, among other things, she destroyed her marriage and abandoned her daughter for almost five years. Not great.

Despite that, I really found myself caring for the Koski family. It’s impossible not to root for them and for their struggles to make a life for themselves, and this book is a tribute to that struggle. All hail the epic!

Historical fiction with arelatively short timeline but unusual focus, namely Finnish immigrants in Washington State at the turn of the 20th Century.  Author Karl Marlantes had the opportunity to dive deep into political waters of early Socialism in Europe, beginnings of union organization in the USA, the challenges for immigrants escaping feudalism and hoping for success in capitalism.  One constant handicap in the book, for me as a novice to the culture and community, were the names.  I had so much difficulty following characters at various points in this book.  The sheer numbers of them just dwarfed my abilities to follow the plot.  I acknowledge my limitations. I had hoped this book would follow multiple generations but it did not.  I found that disappointing and yearned for it.  I also felt the author juggled the point of view and then left readers hanging at the end by not offering good closure all around.  So, while this is a mixed treat, it is unique and a juicy read.  I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

An amazing family saga set in the early 1900’s and beginning in Finland where the Koski father was taken by the Russians.   He had two sons and a daughter, Ilmari, Matt and daughter Aino.  The sons emigrated to  Washington to homestead, using the timber around them to begin a new life.   They needed to avoid conscription into the Army.  Aino  was forced to follow shortly after due to her being sent to prison for her political  beliefs and betrayal of others through torture.   The story follows the family through extremely tough times, and prosperous times in their logging and farming years.  Aino’s strong willed political beliefs led her to sacrifice  even her family and put her into many dangerous situations.  A historical story that gives the reader insights to the hardships immigrants had to face to make it in the ‘new world’.    Excellently written, and well worth the 700 pages!

Deep River is a marathon of a historical novel, one you cannot bear to put aside.  We follow the children of Maijaliisa and Tapio Koski from Kokkola, Finland as they immigrated to the  communities of the Columbia River basin (known then as the Deep River) between Washington and Oregon, USA,  and became an important element in the timber industry and the Colombia River basin, as the family spread out and grew.  The Koski family were hard working, a credit to their community,  a settlement comprised for the most part of Finnish and Swedish immigrants.  Ilmari, the first of the children to come over in 1897, welcomed his younger siblings as tension and persecution in Russian-ruled Finland increased and the young men of the community faced being drafted into the Russian army, young women a life of servitude and fear. 

Life in the northwest USA was not easy or simple at the turn of the 20th century.  It was a new day for the Toski children, however, as they grew to fit in and appreciate their new home.  We follow their progress from the death of three of the siblings in Finland from cholera in 1891 through March of 1969.  This is a saga you will not want to miss.  The influence of the immigrants from Finland and Sweden are still apparent in the communities today that cradle the mouth of Deep River.  

I received a free electronic copy of this historical novel from Netgalley, Karl Marlantes, and Atlantic Monthly Press.  Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.

So, guys, Matterhorn. Marlantes' last book? Huge; really big. You'd think there'd be all kinds of reviews about this book out there already, all kinds of p. r. Nope, hardly a peep. And I sort of needed for someone to tell me how I felt about this book. Is that weird?

It will seem even weirder when I tell you that I really liked this book. I'm all over decades long family sagas. I mean, The Thorn Birds was one of my first "grown up" favorite books, after all. And I learned a lot from Deep River and you know how much I love that in a book. The lumbar industry, the labor movement on the west coast, the immigrant experience of the Finns who settled in the west - Marlantes had me going to the internet again and again to find out which characters were real people, what events really happened.

I became very attached to some of the family and the people who surrounded them and felt that they were, for the most part, well developed. Which made me get really nervous when the tension built but Marlantes kept from making this a giant saga of terrible things that happened to this family.

But then...it seemed to drag on forever. It is over 700 pages long but I've raced through books that long before. What made this one feel so different? One reviewer I found used the word "longeur" in his review (which I had to look up which you know I also love!); for those of you, like me, who need a definition, longeur means a tedious passage in a book. Oh yeah, for as much action as there was, for as many beautifully descriptive passages as there were, there were also a heck of a lot of longeurs. In fairness to Marlantes, though, I was balancing several books I needed to get through, including a really long audiobook and I might have become much more engrossed in it if I had devoted myself solely to this book. But part of what made the book drag was that Marlantes included so many characters and tried to cover so much ground with this book - the history of the logging industry along the Columbia River, the history of the labor movement, the salmon and fishing industry, the immigrant experience. Yes, it gave me a lot to learn about but it often felt like it was pulling me away from the story of this family.

I would recommend Deep River, with the proviso that there may be times you'll want to skim over those longeurs. If you read it, especially if you are able to really devote your full attention to it, I hope you'll let me know what you thought of it.

I didn't finish this book. It just felt too dark. (Now I am filling in the space: I didn't finish this book. It just felt too dark.I didn't finish this book. It just felt too dark.I didn't finish this book. It just felt too dark.I didn't finish this book. It just felt too dark.I didn't finish this book. It just felt too dark.I didn't finish this book. It just felt too dark.I didn't finish this book. It just felt too dark.I didn't finish this book. It just felt too dark.)

DNF at 34%

The trials and tribulations of the Koski siblings as they flee from Russian-occupied Finland to logging country in Washington state in the early 20th century.

To be fair, I am not the target demographic for this book, and it was made abundantly clear to me the more I read it.

This is the kind of book that boomer-aged white guys love—that thick, historical fiction tome that is both interesting and something you can show off. 

Think James Michener or Ken Follett (although I actually kinda like Follett's historical fiction), where men are men and women are...well, they are empowered and strong and totally have agency because men can write women too.

My first clue should have been the blurb, where Aino was touted as one of the book's many "strong, independent women." Remember that Twitter hashtag where people mimicked stereotypical male writers writing women? This author never read that hashtag and totally thought he could. They don't quite breast boobily, but they come close.

Straightening her shoulders, pushing her breasts out, and with the confidence of a queen, she reentered the dance.


Never have I ever been as preoccupied with my boobs and my ribs as Aino is.

She was taller than Aino, but younger, not yet fully developed. She was not beautiful but not ugly, pleasant looking. There was no fat on her, nor was there any on the other girls, but she wasn’t thin. She looked strong, in a girl way.


Not only is this poor writing, but it's really condescending. "Strong in a girl way?" Wtf.

Plus, there's a lovely "she was curvy in all the right places" description, and I'm not quite sure if he was describing a woman, a bed post or a sine wave because what does "curvy in all the right places" even mean??

Anywho, I really did enjoy the descriptions of logging—this aspect was precisely why I picked this book up—and that it takes place in southwest Washington, close to the Oregon border. While the descriptions of the Columbia River tended to wax a little too poetic, I had serious nostalgia for home.

But ultimately my enjoyment of the general plot and the setting wasn't enough to pull me into the storyline. Poorly written female characters (there are probably male authors and male readers who will probably contest me—a woman—stating this) sucked my enjoyment from the storyline, along with two out-of-the-blue n-words (seriously white authors, I don't care how "historically accurate" you wish to be, this is not our word to use).

Honestly, I'm pissed that I didn't enjoy this more and even more pissed that I spent 3 days slogging through it when I have other books to read.

Reasons to read: if you're a white cis male boomer who enjoys long, family-oriented historical tomes that could probably be heavily edited.

Reasons to avoid: if you're literally anyone else.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.