Book Review: The Day the Falls Stood Still

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Again, I'm frustrated by the stars system here at Goodreads. This book rates somewhere between a four and a five for me--probably a 4.5. The book, set on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls when the power plants were being erected to harness Niagara's power, spans the years from WWI to the early 1920s. The story is poignant, moving and character-driven. There is no real plot here--the drama is in the river, (a character in itself, and one that brings a great deal of tension and dread to the proceedings), a riverman's preternatural understanding of and love for it, and the narrator's love for him. It's a beautifully written, understated love story that brought me to tears more than once. When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it, and anxious to return to it. The power here is in the quiet drama that lives in bonds of love and tests of faith, whether that faith is a belief in God, nature, or something bigger than cannot quite be defined. It reminds one of the ways the dead remain with us, and how, perhaps even more so in their absence, they make us who we are. Excellent, intimate historical fiction.



View all my reviews