Some books just seem to mirror emotional events in a reader’s current life – even if they are set in different time periods – making them even more relatable. Such is the case with Go as a River for me, which begins in the 1940s.

I think this would have been an emotional read one way or the other, but the particular circumstances facing the town of Iola as it is ‘reshaped’ are reminiscent of the displacement I am facing in my own life (my circumstance – not to be confused with Iola’s – is an enormous pit-mine copper mine planned for the picturesque mountains in front of what I had always planned to be my forever home. A place I love dearly and with every cell in my body. The destructive ‘exploration’ has already begun.)

So, to say I shed empathetic tears is an understatement – not just for the main character, Victoria, but for an entire town that never asked for its new reality. While this resonated with me, it is not actually the main thrust of the story. Though based on true events, Iola’s fate serves mostly as a lovely metaphorical backdrop to Victoria’s life and her journey ... a heart-tugging tale.

Read understands the environment, and her love of it is apparent in the tender and reverent way she writes about the natural world, and the nature-loving attributes she assigns to three specific characters. It is downright lovely – and so are the author’s instincts about human emotion:

<i>I knew that a dozen cliff swallows descended on the river with every mayfly hatch and that this would be the exact moment a rainbow trout would rise to Daddy’s cast. And I knew that the fiercest storms, dark and ominous as the devil, nearly always blew in over the northwestern peaks and that every songbird and raven and magpie would silence just before the sky unleashed. So, no, one place was not just like another in my mind, and I wondered why this boy didn’t seem to know a thing about home.

I was a girl alone in a house of men, quickly becoming a woman. It was like blossoming in a bank of snow.

As I drifted off to sleep in my new forest home, woven in some great and mysterious tapestry, the only sound I listened for was the steady pulse of the vast collection of beating hearts, the inhale and exhale of a million lives being lived alongside mine. </i>

This is a story of young love, misunderstanding, the mistakes we make, the ways we love, and the ways we survive. It is a lovely meditation on motherhood, friendship, acceptance and respect for all the living things – human, leafy and rooted, or mammalian.

I look forward to what Shelley Read writes next

I adored everything about this book - way different than I thought it would be, it really hit me as a mother and I just loved imagining what I'd do in Victoria's shoes. This one totally pulled at the heartstrings! Lots of tears and might just make my top 10 of 2023.

This is a really lovely story and if you’ve read and enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing it will be a winner with you. I don’t think Go as a river is as good as Crawdads but nevertheless I still enjoyed it enormously.
Victoria is a believable coming of age character and Wil was a delight.

“Victoria Nash is just a teenager in the 1940s, but she runs the household on her family's peach farm in the ranch town of Iola, Colorado--the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men.” (GoodReads)

I was completely swept away by this heartfelt story about resiliency, family ties, coming-of-age, and the demands of farm life. This book deserves the buzz: I couldn’t read it fast enough. By the end of the book, I felt I knew Victoria well, and I was glad for it. Even the cover is luscious. (I can’t decide if I like the US or Canadian cover better.) This is a phenomenal debut from Shelley Reads.

Thanks, Netgalley and Spiegel & Grau, for the digital review copy.

This is one of those beautiful stories where you just want to sit in silence when it’s done and hug the book ever so tightly.

Go as a River is the debut novel from Shelley Read, and her writing is gorgeous. She draws you into the time and place of 1948 through 1960’s Colorado, and starts at the 17 year old life of Victoria Nash. Victoria is the sole female in her family, and with grace and courage, she supports her dad by working on their generational peach farm and she is responsible for all of the household duties, including for her brother Seth and Uncle Ogden who live with them.

When Victoria has a brief encounter in their small town with a young transient, Wilson Moon, she is drawn to him and cannot get him off her mind. The story takes off from there as it spans over the next 20 years and it is unputdownable. It is a story of love, grief, loneliness, bigotry, and resilience. A story of change, courage, and hope.

Go as a River would be amazing for a book club, because after holding this story in your heart, you just want to talk about it with someone.

Thank you to Spiegel & Grau and Netgalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

Go as a River will be one of my favourite books of 2023.

I LOVED this book! My heart ached for Torie, but I rooted for her every step of the way. I loved how her character evolved and matured. I did want more for her, more friendships or relationships. She felt so lonely from start to end. I liked her relationship with Zelda and how Zelda cared for her. My heart broke for Wil and how he was treated, how he had no one and instead of fleeing, stayed for Torie. Readers who liked Where the Crawdads Sing will enjoy this novel.

Go As A River is the story of Victoria (Tori) Nash in 1940’s Colorado who has lost her mother at a young age and is forced to become the only woman to care for her father, brother, and ailing uncle on their farm. A chance meeting with Wilson Moon, a young Native American boy, becomes a friendship and eventually a clandestine romance. Tori is warned by her family against associating with Wil. What follows is both heartbreaking and uplifting.
The lyrical writing carries the reader through the hardships, loss, and pain. The landscape is harsh, unforgiving, and the place Tori escapes to for solace. I was immediately drawn into the story, and didn’t come up until the last page was turned. Read does an excellent job with the complexities in the relationships, letting the story unfold at a pace that seems organic. It’s a story of resilience, of perseverance, of blind faith against all odds. It’s about grief, forgiveness of others and ourselves.
I highly recommend for those that read literary fiction, for book clubs and buddy reads. I can’t wait to see what Shelley Read writes next as I think she’s definitely an author to watch.
Thank you to Spiegal & Grau, Shelley Read, and Netgalley for the advanced review copy.

WOW. That is all I can say. This books focuses on the life of Torie starting from the loss of her mother and growing up on a peach farm in Colorado and the chance encounter she experiences with a stranger that stays with her the rest of her life.

The prose was beautiful and lyrical and I wish I could read this book all over again.

Go As A River is the beautifully written story of Victoria Nash who at seventeen years of age finds herself as matriarch of her family in a household full of men. The story spans over a couple of decades as she endures a series of losses and hardships in a beautiful landscape. It’s a rich character driven story that has a good pace for the timespan covered with the story. If you are a fan of Where the Crawdads Sings, you will LOVE this read as well.

A huge thank you to Net Galley and Spiegel & Grau for the eARC in exchange for this fair and unbiased review.

✨✨Happy publication day to this absolutely gorgeous book!✨✨

🍑The stranger’s eyes were as dark and shiny as a raven’s wing. And kind—that is what I remember most about those eyes from that first glimpse until the final gaze—a gentleness that seemed to fountain from his center and spill out like an overflowing well.

🍑Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, the moments of our becoming cannot be carefully plucked like the ripest and most satisfying peach from the bough. In the endless stumble toward ourselves, we harvest the crop we are given.

🍑A new life was unfolding before me. I never stopped questioning the choices of my past, but in the known world, each step surely unfurls the next, and we must walk into that open space, mapless and without invitation.

Review: This book was so beautifully written. I highlighted so many sentences and I wish I could share them all. This coming of age story is narrated by Victoria, a young woman who lives on a peach farm in Colorado. She has suffered some terrible losses in her young life and is about to experience her first love. She is strong and has a beautiful heart and how her story transpires will leave you feeling raw and heartbroken and also proud of her strength. I enjoyed this book so much and only wish I could have had a fresh peach while I was reading it.

Highly recommend this beauty! Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel and Grau Publishing for the advanced ecopy of the book.

This story begins in the 1940s in a small town on a peach farm in Colorado, where young teenager Torie has had to take over as the woman of the house after her mother’s death. The book traces her coming of age, and eventually the next few decades of her life as well.

It’s a quiet book and often a sad one as well, strongly grounded in a sense of space and time with some beautiful descriptions of nature and setting. Lovely writing and a moving story.

If there’s any weakness to it, it’s only that even though it hasn’t been published yet, it’s getting SO much hype from my trusted reader friends who were early readers that I expected even more. I did love it, just regular 4 star type of love rather than the rare 5 star type of love. But nonetheless I really enjoyed it and very much recommend it! And based on the fact that it’s publication date was moved up, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a celebrity book club pick, a Book of the Month pick, or both.

This book is a beautiful, but heartbreaking reality to the lives and situations of
neighborhoods during the 1940’s and 50’s for people of different races, religions,
and class levels. This book brings up issues of love – between two people as a
couple, between a family as a group, between a mother and a child – and
ultimately how relationships change when that love is tested in unimaginable
ways.
The landscapes of the novel are beautifully described by the author, with vivid
language and portrayal of small-town-America and the people who care for the
land. One of the outstanding quotes from the book was “The landscapes of our
youths create us, and we carry them within us, storied by all they gave and stole,
in who we become” and this is exactly the way that the story leaves you feeling.
Victoria as a character has been completely shaped by the land and the people
around her and has lived the experience of someone much older than her for her
young age.
This book was both heartbreaking and heartwarming and will be perfect for fans
of Where the Crawdads Sing and To Kill a Mockingbird and is sure to be another
modern classic in the making.

Torie (Victoria) is still in her teens living in a house full of men - father, uncle and brother - after her mother died and filling each day with indoor and outdoor chores while getting little thanks or appreciation in return. One day in town she meets Wil, a Native American drifter with kind eyes and a gentle spirit. Love ensues, but it is not to be! The decades that follow are filled with desire, passion, heartbreak, strength, courage, resiliency and friendship. The story is told with descriptions of a harsh and beautiful landscape. Victoria finds refuge in the land when she is faced with almost too much to bear and finds the courage to begin life again. This is such a beautiful debut novel and I am so glad to have read it! Thank you NetGalley for giving me the chance!

Book Friends, this one is going to be HUGE. Creative, different, well-written with a broad appeal, I see this being a book club book. (I will also be shocked if this is not a Reece’s Book Club pick, although I have absolutely no knowledge of this.)

Go As A River tells the story of Victoria Nash, 17, who lives in a ranch town of Iola, Colorado on her family’s peach farm. Her life is very structured and she is responsible for maintains the household after her mother dies. She lives with her father, brother and uncle (who lost his leg in the war.). A trip in to town one day changes her life. There she meets Wilson Moon, who eventually becomes her best friend and lover. But she has to keep it secret because he is an outsider and a Native American who is subject to widespread prejudice, including from her own family. That’s all I am going to say. Read it. The way Read weaves this story together is masterful.

Thank you to @SPIGEL and @netgalley for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.


⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

5+++++ stars - a bajillion stars!

I cannot believe this is a debut novel. It must have percolated in Read's brain for years before it finally forced itself out into the world. I feel like Shelly Read tore a gaping hole through my soul and filled it with her magnificent book.

Everything about this novel is perfect. The sense of place took me straight to western Colorado. Her descriptions are magical, her prose breathtaking. I could taste the peaches her heroine lovingly nurtured from her orchard. The characters are full and rich and elicited strong emotional responses from me. The plot and pacing worked perfectly. I could not stop reading this book - yet I wanted to stop because I wanted it to last.

Every few years, a book comes along that goes on my "special" shelf - this one is going there. I received a free electronic copy from NetGalley in exchange for a review, but I've already bought a hard copy for myself to keep.

Readers who like emotional stories - who appreciate a good cry - will enjoy this book. If you enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing or are a fan of Paulette Jiles' historical fiction, I predict you'll also like (love?) this book.

"The landscapes of our youths create us, and we carry them within us, storied by all they gave and stole, in who we become."

Go as a River is a quiet introspective novel that follows Victoria Nash for about 20 years starting at the age of 17 when she lives with the remnants of her family on their Colorado peach farm and when she meets a young man who will alter the course of her life.

"How does one live for seventeen years without ever considering whether she is known? The idea had not previously occurred to me, that someone could see into the heart of things and there you'd be. I stood on the dusty flophouse steps feeling transparent, held up to the light in a way I never imagined before meeting Wilson Moon."

This story is very much a character study and is not driven by a strong, eventful plot. If you're looking for action and strong central conflict, look elsewhere. Instead, the reader follows Victoria through formidable challenges and gets glimpses back into the past to see what has made her and her family who they are and to add levity to the difficult choices Victoria makes to survive and build a life for herself.

"But I came to understand that she, like I, like women throughout the ages, knew the value of employing silence as a guard dog to her truth. By showing on the surface only a small fraction of her interior, a woman gave men less to plunder."

I was originally drawn to this novel because it was recommended for fans of Where the Crawdad's Sing and The Four Winds and the synopsis described a book with both a strong setting and a strong female lead. I didn't think the setting or main character were quite as well developed as Where the Crawdad's Sing and the more-than-human world was not as present as I had hoped - as this was one of my favorite aspects of Owens' novel. Though, Victoria is an outcast like Kya, but I didn't feel as much empathy for Victoria as I did for Kya. However, I see the parallels between this novel and The Four Winds. Both follow a woman through some harsh trials that include the challenges of motherhood in difficult circumstances, and I felt a similar sense of distance between myself and the main characters in these books. I think that is the biggest shortcoming I felt while reading this novel. I wanted to feel a greater connection to the main character. Perhaps it was her stoicism. Perhaps it was the slow pace with which I read the book - due to life circumstances, not the book itself. Still, I wanted to feel more for Victoria than I did.

The standout for me is Read's writing. It's beautiful and I've highlighted so many passages throughout the book that offer the kind of original and concise insight into the human experience that motivates me as a reader. I also applaud Read for crafting a complex character that illustrates a different perspective of female resilience, grief, and strength that felt utterly authentic. I do recommend this book for fans of Where the Crawdad's Sing and The Four Winds, as long as you are satisfied by quiet stories that have stronger writing than plot.

Here’s the thing. Go As A River is just not for me. It’s a crying book, and me and my cold, dead heart just don’t enjoy crying books. But readers who love books that give you a character to root for then throw heartbreak after heartbreak at them for 300 pages will love this one.

The protagonist of Go As A River is Victoria, a 17 year old girl living in a small Colorado town in the 1940s. She lives with her dad, brother, and disabled veteran uncle on a peach farm, after her mother, cousin, and aunt died in an accident. Victoria meets a boy and sparks fly. From there, Victoria’s life unfolds as a series of hardships and losses.

This book is perfect for readers who love Kristin Hannah or love the nature writing and isolation in Where the Crawdads Sing. I have no doubt that this book will find its readers — even if it’s not me!

This is my favorite read of 2023 so far. Shelley Read’s debut novel, Go As a River, is a gorgeous and heartbreaking coming-of-age story that honestly doesn’t read like a debut novel.

It’s 1948, and Victoria Nash imagines little for her life beyond running the household for her father, brother, and uncle on her family’s peach farm in small town Iola, Colorado. But a chance meeting with a young drifter on the corner of North Laura and Main Street changes the course of her life forever. She and Wilson Moon share an immediate connection, and a love story that ends too soon.

The story spans decades, following Victoria as she gains the courage to take control of her life, the strength to survive loss, and the resilience to adapt to a life that is different from what she ever expected.

Shelley Read writes with wisdom and compassion, as well as a great love for the Colorado wilderness that shines through in her evocative descriptions. Nature plays an important role in this novel—in that sense I’d say this book feels a little like Where the Crawdad Sings or The Great Alone. I was also impressed with the cast of characters that feel real, flawed, and often quite nuanced. It’s impossible not to root for the protagonist, Victoria, as she overcomes obstacles and grows as a person.

I absolutely recommend this beautiful book. Many thanks to Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley for the advance reader copy.

Beautifully written debut novel.a book that drew me in from the first pages.A young girl Colorado as a setting a tragedy a book that is emotionally moving characters that come alive a book I will be recommending a new author to follow.#netgalley #goasariver.

Beautiful, compelling, and clearly written with a lot of heart. It just wasn't for me but five stars dor being just generally good and I know it's going to do well.