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19 days and 14:48:40
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More Than Any River: A Novel
Not yet published
Expected 24 Mar 26Win a free print copy of this book!
19 days and 14:48:40
10 copies available
U.S. only
272 pages, Paperback
Expected publication March 24, 2026
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1197 people want to read
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Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
There are some really great things about this book, which made me want to give it five stars. The main one was the immense importance of its subject, namely water rights in the Central Valley of California. Few people are aware of the complexities surrounding water in our state, and the author clearly did a great deal of research to try to understand and then explain them. I applaud her for this work, which will hopefully draw more attention to the damage we are doing to the environment, as well as the greed and corruption in the ag industry and resource agencies. One can only watch with horror as water tables drop to frightening levels, farmlands subside, and some farm communities have actually been left without drinking water. It’s scary.
The respect the author showed for both Japanese Californians and current farmers struggling to compete with agribusiness was wonderful.
On the other hand, I had problems with the novel part of the book, which is why I couldn’t give it that additional star. There were so many characters that I kept forgetting who was who. The narrative arc was not at all clear to me. The legal details became a bit ponderous. And I could have done with fewer descriptions of clothing, eye color and food that made parts of the book feel like women’s fiction rather than literature.
That being said, I am grateful to the author for writing this book. She clearly loves both the Delta and Santa Cruz areas and their habitats. She does a fantastic job conveying this with her prose. I kind of wish she’d written a nonfiction book instead, because I sensed that most of what she wrote about was true. Nonfiction would have given the book even more impact, I believe, because we couldn’t excuse the inexcusable by saying, “Oh, it’s just fiction.”
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance review copy of this book.
The respect the author showed for both Japanese Californians and current farmers struggling to compete with agribusiness was wonderful.
On the other hand, I had problems with the novel part of the book, which is why I couldn’t give it that additional star. There were so many characters that I kept forgetting who was who. The narrative arc was not at all clear to me. The legal details became a bit ponderous. And I could have done with fewer descriptions of clothing, eye color and food that made parts of the book feel like women’s fiction rather than literature.
That being said, I am grateful to the author for writing this book. She clearly loves both the Delta and Santa Cruz areas and their habitats. She does a fantastic job conveying this with her prose. I kind of wish she’d written a nonfiction book instead, because I sensed that most of what she wrote about was true. Nonfiction would have given the book even more impact, I believe, because we couldn’t excuse the inexcusable by saying, “Oh, it’s just fiction.”
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance review copy of this book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review