This is an excellent book. The author traces her own life, full of ups and downs as she traverses the rivers of America's west and Africa. This is a story of survival, both emotional and physical. It is about learning to navigate life's hurts, find true love, and the hurts inside families and their secrets. The author does a beautiful job of telling her story, a Mom who has to find herself, a step-father who loves her, and several men who while they share the love of rivers are not necessarily ones of her heart. This book was not one I would typically read and I am so glad I stepped out of my usual fiction thriller genre to look into the life of a young woman who navigated not just the river, but life. Thanks to author Bridget Crocker for telling us this story. Also thanks to #NetGalley#TheRiver'sDaughter for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Well done memoir involving adventure, the river, heartbreak, love and incredible strength. Parts were very hard to read such as the abuse she endured but it was well written

What a thriller this was! It will take you on a ride of a lifetime with bumps, and many twists and turns! A must summer read!

I would call Bridget Crocker a River Whisperer, while instinctively knowledgeable about survival and first aid. Talk about survival-abuse from parents, friends of parents, your own life choices of being drugged on drugs, alcohol, and abuse from partners, This author has experienced so much but has had the amazing resilience to become a world class water rafting guide. She manages to retain the nature lessons that she has been taught from parents and a stepfather, lovers and other guides plus her own innate instinct to observe the runnings of the water in getting through so many of the most challenging water rapids in the world. Part of her success in foreign lands was respect of the people and gaining their respect of her. A fascinating read for travelers of all types-armchair, novices or the most adventurous persons seeking their next great adventure. Thanks to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau publishers for an advance ebook; the review is my own opinion.

The River’s Daughter is truly an incredible memoir - full of angst and action. Bridget grew up near the Snake River. She had respect and felt very drawn to the river, spending a great deal of time on its banks as her home life with her family fell apart. The river drew her and she drew strength from it. She survived abuse from her parents and a sexual assault at a young age, along with another attempted assault by a coworker. Eventually she became a white water rafting guide on the river. Her harrowing stories of her experiences on the river were so very chilling. Loved her descriptions of struggling for acceptance among her male peers. As a child she holed up in her closet which she decorated with magazine pictures of Africa seeking to escape her parents. As a young adult she had the opportunity to guide white water rafting on the Zambezi River. More harrowing adventures, especially on her first time on the river.
I learned a great deal about white water rafting - enough to know it is not for me. Her respect and the relationship she developed with each of the rivers and her conversations with them was fascinating to read. So enjoyed her reconnection with her dad on the rafting trip. I struggled with her choice of a partner, especially given the way he treated her. I would have chosen the one she left behind. Bridget found her niche in life sharing her passion for rafting, but I do believe she also has a gift for writing as she kept me enthralled throughout this read.
Many thanks to Bridget Crocker, Spiegel& Grau, and NetGalley for affording me the pleasure of reading an arc of this just published memoir.

A memoir of Bridget's moments of defeat and how she found her strength to be unbreakable. It is a long road to overcome hardships and betrayal from loved ones, but this book brings an inspiring and uplifting account of Bridget Crocker's life. With her mother and father experiencing abuse as children, the cycle continued, as they raised her. Her mother decided to walk away with Bridget and found happiness with another man. She loved her stepfather, but her mother upended their lives once again.
Living on the Snake River in Jackson Hole, she finds the resilience and strength to build her stamina and overcome the trials of sexual abuse and betrayal. Her courage came from her own desire to be at force with the Snake River challenging her as a guide. Some of the challenges she faced brought healing and adventures. I found the book to be gripping and inspiring. So many times I see students suffering from family hardships and later seeing them as successful adults. Her story is a testament to many that face traumatic experiences but find hope and courage from this. I love the cover!!
I love the river also and can find solace and peace from a day kayaking. Right now I'm sitting on an island in the Gulf of America and enjoying a much quieter life than normal.🌴
Thank you NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for this incredible ARC in exchange for my review.

Bridget Crocker grew up in a broken home, in a trailer park along the Snake River in Wyoming. Her childhood was full of trauma, but she drew her resilience from the river. Her teen years were troubled, but she met a man who showed her what it was like to be loved. He also taught her how to be a river guide, leading whitewater rafting tours down the Snake River and eventually to Africa, where she led the rafts down the most treacherous rapids. I loved this coming-of-age memoir, which reads like a novel. It is a story of resilience and perseverance. The river rides were exciting to read about!

3.5
Read by the author herself, we hear from Bridget and her upbringing. Full of disappointment, abuse, moving, but then also being popular and others unaware of what was going on behind closed doors, she is an open book. She then finds respite in river running as a guide in Idaho on the Snake and then eventually to Zambia. Such a cool experience but really a healing thing for her.

Overall, it almost felt like her journal and a way for her to process what happened to her in life. I preferred the second half, but would have loved more river stories rather than life choices she made in general moving from A to B etc.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for the gifted e-arc of this book.

I read both Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Educated by Tara Westover when they were released years ago and picked this up because it seemed similar but better. I feel that The Rivers Daughter is much better, You do need to be prepared for the sad and scary stuff in the beginning of the book. The river stuff is interesting too. I do love these books that talk about how parents and all the weird stuff they did, but I am really hoping my own kids do not feel compelled to write about me.

This memoir swept me away! As someone who’s spent time in Jackson Hole and rafted the Snake River—yes, even the Lunch Counter rapids—I felt an immediate connection to Bridget’s journey. Her vivid storytelling brought back so many memories and made me fall in love with the river all over again. 🌲🚣‍♀️

Bridget’s life is a remarkable blend of outdoor adventure and deep personal resilience. Her stories of rafting not only in the U.S. but in Africa were captivating and unlike anything I’ve read before.

⚠️ Trigger warnings: This book includes sensitive topics such as domestic violence, child abuse, neglect, sexual assault, harassment, and racism. Bridget doesn’t shy away from the hard truths, but instead, she transforms them into a powerful testament of survival and strength.

She is an exceptional woman, and her story is raw, inspiring, and absolutely worth reading.

✨ Favorite Quotes:
📖 “The Snake had touched me, and in some way, I now belonged to the river.”
📖 “Over the years, I had spent quite a lot of time ruminating about what my family had not given me, overlooking what I’d inherited as my birthright: the ability to transform suffering, rise up, and survive.”

If you love memoirs, wild rivers, and stories of incredible inner strength—add this one to your list. 💙🌍

HOLY CANNOLI THIS ONE MAKES YOU FEEL IT ALL.
Memoirs are so hard to judge- it’s someone life that they are presenting to us for what? Us to rip it apart? I hate that!

This one is so well done. It is heartfelt, so raw and really compelling. Once I started it was impossible to put down- amazing.

'The Snake had touched me, and in some way, I now belonged to the river'.

Bridget's childhood was as dramatic and filled with lurking danger as the white water she came to love as a young adult. Born to two parents who were themselves a product of abusive parents, her mother finally lives her physically violent father, giving Bridget the chance to live in a peaceful eddy with a loving stepfather. However, it was only a temporary stop before she had to navigate more tumultuous years. By chance, Bridget finds herself, her calling and her centre, on the river. It becomes a passion that sees her guiding rafts on wild rivers around the world. Her experiences help to synthesise her troubled life and learn to forgive herself and her family.

It's always difficult to rate someone's life, their personal notes laid bare for everyone to read. I really enjoyed reading about Bridget's rafting adventures and the people she met along the way, as well as her reconciliation with her marred childhood and flawed family. Although reading about her childhood trauma is necessary, it wasn't as easy. Overall though I enjoyed Bridget's story and her courage in not only facing wild, untamed rapids but also the courage to face her upbringing.

'Over the years, I had spend quite a lot of time ruminating about what my family had not given me, overlooking what I'd inherited as my birthright: the ability to transform suffering, rise up, and survive'.

A woman’s memoir detailing her traumatic relationships and how rivers helped her find herself, her place in the world, and forgiveness.

2.5 ⭐️ I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I had hoped I would, but I appreciate what it must have taken for the author to document and share her trauma and I applaud her for breaking the cycle of abuse with her own children. While I did finish, I was never engaged while reading and found myself not really wanting to come back to it. If you’re a sensitive reader, please check trigger warnings to make sure this is the right fit for you.

My thanks to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for a complimentary advance copy of this eBook, out 6/3/2025.

Memoirs can be hit or miss for me. Seeing this compared to Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and Educated really scared me as I hated those two books.
I enjoyed this book. Back it seems like a thousand years ago I was a weekend river traveler. I just loved it. The author talking about how touching the river, showing respect and hearing the river talk to her just warmed up my hateful little heart.

I hate all that she went through with in her family life but she admitted that it made her tough as hell. And she is.

Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.

Sometimes I really struggle to rate memoirs, and that is the case with Bridget Crocker's memoir. I admire her for what she's overcome in her life, and she is an excellent writer. I loved her stories of guiding river rafting adventures, both in the states and in Southern Africa. Her chapters about her time working on the Zambezi River were utterly compelling. This is absolutely just a me thing, but I just wasn't that interested in the trauma of her childhood and what she had to do to overcome it, despite being impressed with how far she came by the end of the book. This is the story of her childhood and early years of adulthood, and then in an epilogue Crocker quickly catches the reader up on the next several decades, where she got therapy, improved her family relationships, quit her addictions, and raised a happy family. Overall, I think I should have looked more closely at the content of the book before requesting it. In looking at the title and cover and only giving the blurb a quick skim, I thought I was getting an adventure memoir, not an overcoming trauma memoir. I can absolutely respect what she's done as well as her beliefs that the various rivers talk to her in a spiritual way, but I was here for the adventures, which were really well written and very satisfying to read. Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for a digital review copy.

The is an amazing memoir by a world-class whitewater rafting guide.

Bridget Crocker’s early life was pleasant, though on the edge of poverty. She lived on the Snake River in a trailer park with her mom, stepfather, and baby brother. Suddenly all of this was torn asunder when her mom had an inexplicable personality shift. The only thing that provided consistency was the river.

In escaping to the river, she found whitewater rafting to be the one thing that allowed her to eventually overcome years of abuse of every type and her own dependencies.

This is a memoir that gifts the reader a full range of wonderful possibilities for their own life, and the descriptions of her rafting adventures are an incredible bonus.

A triumphant debut memoir by a world-class whitewater raft guide and a Class V writer. Bridget Crocker came to whitewater from a childhood that began in a trailer park in California, then floundered its way to the banks of the Snake River in Wyoming, where divorce, drugs, abuse, parental neglect, and sexual assault rough-and-tumbled a resourceful, driven, and attuned young woman. In her search for empathy, Crocker found solace in water, particularly the rivers coursing through places she felt most at home. As a fellow Kern River boater who's had the privilege of reading Crocker's work in the past, I poured through this memoir, recognizing many of the actual rapids as well as conjuring composites of her fellow guides. If you like stories of outdoor adventure and inspiration as described by a strong woman questing and finding her self-reliance, then this is the ticket. This is your jam.

[Thanks Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

This is a biographical story that starts out dark and finishes full of hope. A young girl is raised by ‘trailer trash’ parents who abuse each other and and their child. The local river fascinates her and becomes her salvation, as she learns become a white water rafter guide in the United States and Africa, and develops healthy relationships with friends and her future husband. The details about white water rafting and the culture in Africa with the whites and black guides are eye-opening.. I hope we see more books by the author.

There is a lot to like about this book. Despite the horrific traumas she experienced as a child, Bridget Crocker is able to endure, to find strength, and to overcome in tremendous ways. Her resilience is remarkable, and her connection to nature and the way she describes it throughout this book is very lovely. The whitewater rafting adventures were anxiety-inducing and well-written, and I definitely felt the thrill and the danger of the rapids in her descriptions. I was also so angered by the behaviors of the adults in this story - all of them without exception. Bridget Crocker succeeded in writing an emotional and powerful memoir.

There were also parts of this book that felt rushed or incomplete, that I would have liked the author to delve into more deeply. For example, there were many times in the story where she was upset by injustice or mistreatment, but allowed herself to remain powerless, feeling that she was only powerful when she was on the river. Her relationship with Steve was also an area that seemed like it could have been examined more in the epilogue. And the story arc with her father also felt rushed, I would have liked to hear more about the work they did to repair their relationship.

A well written memoir combined with adventure writing. Crocker finds a salve for the trauma and abuse of her childhood on rivers around the world. While not diminishing what she experienced from her parents and others, it is her recounting of the white water she tackled that lifts this and makes it unique. I was fascinated with the rivers, the mechanics of rafting, and life on the water. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A very good read.