4.25 stars

Justine Champine's debut KNIFE RIVER (publishes May 28, 2024) shows the reverberations of a woman's disappearance on her teenage daughters into adulthood.

Main character Jess floats through life from girlfriend to girlfriend, but, when she's summoned back to Knife River after her mother's bones are potentially found, Jess has to confront the mystery around her mother's disappearance 15 years ago as well as reconnect with her sister Liz and her high school flame Eva.

This is a character study of how Jess and her sister Liz dealt with the disappearance of their mother. Liz refused to leave the family home, despite having wanted to go to across the country for college, and she chained herself to her job as a bank teller. Jess has much more wanderlust and doesn't want to be tied down in any way.

The ambiance of upstate New York makes the reader feel secluded, and much of it takes place during winter.

Two things that inhibited my enjoyment some:
1. There is very little tension in this mystery. I want to feel propulsion to find the killer, and that was lacking with some pacing problems (a lot of languishing).
2. The timeline in this didn't make sense. Now I had an ARC, and I'm hoping this is fixed in publication. And I think it can be easily fixed. "Present day" is 2010 in this story with the mother's disappearance happening 15 years prior (1995). The mother's birth year is 1965, which makes her 30 years old in 1995 - but she has a 19 year old and a 13 year old. That would make her a mother at 11 years old. But later in the novel it indicates she went missing in 2002. But if it's 15 years later, that would be 2017 instead of 2010. So hopefully the book will change "present day" to 2017. That would make everything work.

I found this to be excellent debut, and I enjoyed this character-driven literary mystery. If you like a slower burn mystery, I think you'll like this one.

This was definitely not what I expected. I thought this was going to be a thriller. It’s not it’s a mystery and a family drama all wrapped into one it’s far more about the sisters relationship and how that was shaped by their mother death than the death itself. It’s only a four star instead of a five star because it felt slow to me. I’m not a huge fan of slow burns and sometimes it felt like it was dragging, but I’m not sure that the story could’ve gone faster either. I suspect this is a book that could be somebody’s five star easily, but for me the slowness, even though the story was fantastic

*I received this book as an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) through NetGalley. I received this copy free in exchange for my honest review.*

I was lucky enough to chat with other readers and the team at dial press about this book. Gritty, unsettling and dark, this was a book that left me changed. I read it in one sitting, unable to put it down. This book has convinced me to read anything Chapman writes.

I enjoyed this but don’t think it’ll be for everyone. A very very character driven slow burn. This is more of a character study of the aftermath of someone’s disappearance as opposed to a whodunit. What happens to those that are left behind ? Interesting, but very wordy. Lots of descriptions of setting, which helped me picture their crumbling town. The ending was also satisfying. 3.5 rounded up.

I found this to be a very depressing and dark book.
Two sisters become orphans when their mother disappears. The eldest takes on all the responsibilities, the younger moves away as soon as she can and they have little to do with each other for 20 years. That is until bones were discovered in a field that matched their mother's DNA, and they are reunited under duress.
The obsession with the disappearance of the mother has locked the eldest in a time warp. No relationships, no friends, just work and repeat. The youngest flits between relationships, constantly regretting the one she left behind 20 years ago.
They manage to take on a unified approach with the police at the discovery of the remains because they are convinced they know who the killer was and was never prosecuted.
It's a hard road for these sisters to sort out their new relationship with each other and the reader does catch some kind moments on both parts, but they are long in coming.......too long.
The most excitement happens in the last 20 pages......that part I couldn't put down.

A book about loss, sisterhood and regrets. This book felt somewhat flat to me.

The sisters in this book lost their Mom at a young age when she left one evening and never came back. Her bones are found many years later, and the estranged sisters reunite in hopes of finally finding out what happened to their mother.

This book was interesting and I really liked the exploration of the sister’s relationship- but ultimately it just felt a little meh to me. Recommend with slight hesitation.

While I wouldn’t call this a thriller, the unfolding of the mystery in Knife River is suspenseful and enjoyable. It seems that once she returns, everyone in town is watching Jess from the police, to an old, disgraced teacher, her neighbors, ex girlfriend, and her ex’s strange family. The town of Knife River itself is just as creepy as you’d suspect a town named Knife River to be. I got an eerie feeling that Jess might meet the same fate as her mother around nearly every corner.

On the other side of their front door Jess also must reckon with her relationship with her neurodiverse sister as well as their childhood home which has stood as a diorama frozen in time for 15 years. I liked watching Jess and Liz reconnect and come together to finally move forward as much as I enjoyed unraveling the mystery of what happened to their mother all those years ago.

I don’t know why I couldn’t wait for this book to end, but I didn’t really like it. I didn’t feel a connection with any of the characters and found myself not caring about the love story within. It felt very long-winded and like nothing was happening. I got about 80% in and I just can’t bring myself to finish it.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. Knife River is the story of two sisters grappling with the discovery of the bones of their mother, who went missing 15 years ago. It's a slow burn that goes back and forth between the past and present day.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House for the copy of Knife River by Justine Champine. The basic story was great and if you love descriptive writing you will love it. For me it was too much description, so I found myself skimming those long paragraphs, waiting for the story to resume. The characters were interesting, but none of them were particularly compelling. The story was excruciatingly slow to unwind, and the mystery of what happened to their mother was abandoned for a good part of the book. If you like books about relationships and growth read this book. If you’re looking for a fast-paced thriller, it might not be the book for you!

I struggled to get into this book. The writing was good but there wasn’t enough dialogue and I didn’t feel any connection to the main characters. For me there wasn’t enough action and too much inner thought to move the story along. Even the twist at the end felt flat.
The 3 stars are for the quality of writing.
Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

This isn't my usual read but I loved it. I even participated in a discussion about it. It is a good examination of trauma. It is also very dark and gritty. Lovely.

I love me a story like this! It kept me captivated from the first chapter. I just think a wide variety/range of people will really enjoy this! I recommend.

Knife River by Justine Champine was a slow, slow burn. The book was engaging enough to keep my attention but it developed glacially which may represent how time was moving for the two main characters relative to learning the truth about the disappearance of their mother many years prior.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Finished this book and was definitely riveted throughout the pages, but it was SO BLEAK. And while I understand that the events were forecasting the stagnant lives of the characters - and I acknowledge that the writing was great in making you feel bleak- it just wasn't a win for me. This wasn't a book a would recommend, and I was disappointed at the events that actually caused the mother's death.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

An important thing for readers to know before going into this book is that this book is much more focused on the literary aspect than the thriller aspect. Adjusting expectations to that might help the overall reading experience.

The book examines how living through a mystery of this sort permanently affects all aspects of their lives, how it is constantly at the back of their psyches influencing every decision, and how the lack of closure may freeze lives at a certain moment. It's also a examination of love and how we don't even to truly see or understand every aspect of the people we love.

All of the above mentioned aspects as interesting and in the start of the book and the last 1/4th of the book, it delivers a slowly unfurling mystery along with thes aspects, providing a tense and claustrophobic, yet fascinating read.

However, the problem of the book lies in middle. For at least half of the book towards the middle, the st0ry movement grinds to a screeching halt and the development happens excruciatingly slowly. If often feels meandering and all of the tension dissappears until the last 1/4th. It doesn't help that the narration is lacking in clarity of what is happening in the present(2010) and what are recollections of Jess's memory. Truthfully, it was difficult for me to even maintain engagement through this section and I really had to make myself power through. I am glad I did as the last 1/4th is definitely well done once again, but it did not make for the best reading experience.

Overall though, Knife Reader still manages to make for a compelling read through its explorations, if not the most engaging. It's worth checking out as a deep dive into the psyche of the people left begind on am unresolved missing persons/murder case.

I was expecting a much different book even after I started reading it but liked the one that I got. Early trauma and its effects on who we turn out to be. Relationships, both sisterly and romantic.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review

Two estranged sisters reunite in their small hometown after their long-missing mother’s bones are discovered. If you want fast-paced twists, skip this one. It’s a slow burn. But burn it does—smoke will get in your eyes. Fifteen years ago, when Jess was thirteen, her mom left for a walk and vanished. Jess’s fiercely smart big sister had to give up on her dreams of college to care for her sibling, until Jess skipped town and drifted. Now, as they wait for the cops to finally do something, the sisters are forced to get to know each other - and face their small conservative town's homophobic reality. While the mystery of who killed their mom smolders like toxic smoke in the background, this is ultimately an examination of the ripple effects of trauma. The writing is gorgeous and the characters so real I didn’t just get to know them but became them.

It’s only April but I’m calling KNIFE RIVER one of my favorite books of 2024. IT'S SO GOOD!

Knife River tells the story of two sisters searching for closure 15 years after the sudden disappearance of their mother. Jess, the younger sister, left their tiny upstate New York town 10 years earlier but is called back by her older sister when their mother’s bones are discovered.
The book explores the relationship between the two sisters and how they were each profoundly and uniquely damaged by their mother’s death. There is not a tremendous amount of plot but this is a truly character driven story. A late plot reveal is very surprising but still rings true and is believable.
Knife River is a beautiful debut novel. I look forward to the next thing Justine Champine writes.
Thank you to The Dial Press and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was an interesting novel with well developed characters and a unique plot I enjoyed the writing style and the attention to detail but I found some parts to be slow paced.
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.