A really complex and beautiful read. Captured me from the beginning with the beautiful setting and Victoria as a character is so beautifully written.
A heartbreaking story but also a story of courage whilst facing life’s difficulties. There is grief, hope and sadness as well as success, love and happiness all mixed in to a great narrative that you kind of get lost in.
This will be a book I will pick up again in future for certain.

I liked this one, but didn't love it. I just didn't connect with the characters and it wasn't one I was excited to come back to reading. The writing was excellent though!

I love nature writing and Shelley Read knocked it out if the park with this one. It’s hard to believe this is her debut novel. The book is so atmospheric and her characters are so well drawn. Simply incredible

Go As The River promises to be a coming-of-age + women’s fiction + historical fiction that packs an emotional punch. Everything I typically love in a book!

I had really high expectations when I started this one, especially with all the hype surrounding this book. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t connect with Victoria or her story.

Victoria develops a special relationship with nature. But the story felt more of an observational telling of the setting around her rather than the deep dive into feelings of resiliency, tenacity, and determination that it takes to survive those conditions. Maybe I needed some internal monologue to connect more - I’m not sure.

Victoria falls in love with Wll Moon, the only Indigenous character in the story. IMO, the story does a disservice having only one Indigenous character. @amy_alwaysreading wrote more on this topic and summarized my thoughts beautifully. Maybe I needed more than one Indigenous character - I’m not sure.

My favorite part of the novel happens in the last 20%, a series of letters. I found these letters quite interesting and engaging. Maybe if these were used throughout the story as a dual timeline, I would have connected more - again, I’m not sure.

Regardless, I know I’m one of the outliers for this one. Not all books are for everybody, and I’m okay with that. Kudos to my friends who loved this one.

I'm going to be thinking of Wil Moon and Victoria Nash for the rest of my life.

Go as a River describes the life of Torie Nash on a peach farm in Colorado (which for some reason, in my head, I thought was Illinois). She meets a young Native man around her age, and love is fast and hard. The life Torie leads and she grows into "Victoria," a woman, is filled with loss and longing. The love Torie and Wil have together is one that would last a lifetime. The writing was beautiful, and I tend to be a bit harsh on writing styles. I really loved their story and couldn't put it down.

Let me start off this review by telling you that I cannot believe this is a debut, it was a 5 star read for me and will probably be in my top ten this year! Some of my bookstagram friends have been telling me to read this and they did not steer me wrong. It will not be easily forgotten and will stay with me for a long time. The writing is beautiful yet very readable. The story is propulsive and heart wrenching. The setting is vivid. This book is basically everything.

Go As A River is the story of Victoria Nash starting in the 1940’s in the Gunnison River Valley of Colorado. Now let me pause here for just a minute to acknowledge this setting. I lived in Colorado for years growing up surrounded by the San Juan mountains in Pagosa Springs. All the little towns mentioned in this book, I knew! Durango, Silverton and Ouray, Montrose, Gunnison… I haven’t been back in many decades so this story was extra special to me for that reason.

Victoria’s story is a story of love and loss, friendship, motherhood, found family and surviving unimaginable circumstances, yet resilience is a theme running through it all. I won’t give you specifics of the story, just know that fans of William Kent Krueger, Where The Crawdads Sing, These Silent Woods and even a little bit of Kristin Hannah will LOVE this one.

Omg this book *sobs*

I loved every page of this book. The setting was exquisite. Victoria is the badass heroine with trauma we all love to love.

I have considered the lives of people who are drowned out by reservoirs before. What a beautiful story to demonstrate the fragility of life and the impermanence of it all.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing or who likes Kristin Hannah books, though I can’t imagine anyone who reads this regretting it.

Great debut by Shelley Read! I loved the story as it unfolded, such heartbreak, yet a rendering of lost souls all coming together! I will definitely be watching for future books by this author.

I chose "Go as a River" by Shelley Read for my book club because of its setting in Colorado, where I live, and the intriguing description of a young woman's journey of self-discovery. The book is a powerful memoir that follows Read's life from her rural childhood to her unexpected pregnancy, her experience of giving birth alone in the mountains, and her eventual relocation and struggles to build a new life.

Read's writing is vivid and emotional, capturing the beauty of Colorado's landscapes and the challenges a young woman faces in the mid-20th century. Her story is heart-wrenching and inspiring as she grapples with difficult decisions and life-altering events. The story moved all members of my book club as we discussed the themes of resilience, family, and the connection between humans and nature.

Overall, "Go as a River" is a beautifully written and deeply moving memoir that offers insights into the complexities of human experience—highly recommended for anyone seeking a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant read, especially those interested in Colorado's history and natural beauty.

“Just as a single rainstorm can erode the banks and change the course of a river, so can a single circumstance of a girl’s life erase who she was before (Chapter 10)..” GO AS A RIVER, Shelley Reads debut novel, is a beautifully written, sometimes haunting story of seventeen-year-old Victoria “Torie” Nash. Torie lives in Iola, Colorado, a small town on the banks of the Gunnison River in Colorado. Life is hard on the peach farm. Her father is in mourning for his wife, Her crippled Uncle Og and her older brother Seth live in the house. Torie is a virtual slave cooking, cleaning, etc. As a reader, I fell in love with Read’s writing. Just as a river can meander, have whirlpools, get angry and come out of its banks, Torie finds herself in that whirlpool of life for most of the story. It was an emotional story for me. I laughed. I cried. I was angry about the suffering she endured. I need to let this book rest in my mind for awhile and reread it in a couple of months. My thanks to Spiegel and Grau and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.

This book is so beautifully written and totally evokes the sounds, smells and experience of life in this part of the world at this time along with the struggles those living it faced.
I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.

This book knocked my socks off. The strength of the main character Victoria and all the sacrifices she made in the name of love. I was pulled in from the first Chapters. This was a beautiful book.

Go As a River by Shelley Read is one of my favorite reads in March. It is a breathtakingly beautifully written coming of age book in rural Colorado in the late 1940s to the 1960s. The characterization, conflict development, and use of imagery were all incredibly rich, yet the story felt so accessibly that I flew through its pages. Bigotry, sexism, ageism, and probably several other forms of bigotry were present everywhere, but in Read's gifted writing hands, they never felt heavy-handed or tyrannical. They simply were an inescapable part of the story that shaped Victoria, but they do not, in the end (spoiler!) define her.

The story is hard and emotional, and some episodes seem absolutely impossible. But the true gift of this story is how it highlights the best of humanity in the most unlikely places, places that end up making me say, oh, of course. I cannot wait for Read's next novel.

Thank you @netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy. This takes place in 1948 on a peach farm in a small town in Colorado. Victoria is 17 and has taken care of her father, uncle and brothers since her mother died. It is not a good situation. When she meets and fall in love with a Native American man who is passing through town, things do not go well. The prejudice is awful, and the book has a lot of sadness along with some hope. The story follows what happens to them and how her life plays out. It's a good story, slow with lots of meaning. #goasariver #shelleyread #bookstagram #booklover #reader #bookblog #lovetoread #fictionreader #bookreview #bookrecommendation #readersofinstagram #bookloversofinstagram #takeapagefrommybook #readallthebooks #booksbooksbooks #historicalfiction #forbiddenlove #netgalley #advancedreaderscopy

Shelley Read's Go As A River is a big bold book that packs a lot into its pages and is hard to summarize, but I would just say "it's about a life". The story starts in 1940's Colorado when young Victoria Nash is intrigued by a stranger passing through her town. The friendship she forms with Wilson Moon will teach her a lot about the world she lives in, it's prejudices and struggles. And their meeting will profoundly change the direction of her life.

I don't want to summarize the story, because letting it unfold before you is so much more pleasurable. I will post about a couple of impressions. I don't think books like this get published that often anymore. It is a story about times in the not too distant past, but rings true and heartfelt. What makes it rise above other books is the author's writing. It is lyrical, and I would argue that her title, "Go As A River", which has meaning in the story, also could be used to describe her writing style. If you slow down and give it time to seduce you, you will drift slowly but happily away on the words of this story, as they lead you through one life.

I give this disclaimer because my usual reading style is mysteries with a lot of action. The story seemed to start off slow to me, but in reality, this is just the author's storytelling style, and if you let yourself enjoy the pace, it may enchant you as it did me.

As a read I would rate this 4.5, but I think it's an extraordinary effort by a debut novelist, so on writing prowess I am giving it five stars.

Thank you to author Shelley REad, her publisher, and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC.

As I read this I kept putting it down as the first 1/3 didn’t really peak my interest. However I’m glad I kept coming back to reading it as the struggles Torie/Victoria faced in this time period were so gripping I had to know more. A wonderful coming of age story that brings two mothers together. 3.5 stars

(2.5⭐️) Many thanks to my friends at @spiegelandgrau for the #gifted copy of this book.

I grew up in Georgia. Peaches are a way of life for us. There’s really nothing like that first bite… juice dripping down your chin, the sweetness hitting your tongue…

But in the middle of the juiciest, sweetest crop of peaches, there’s always the potential for one that is underdeveloped, with less robust flavor.

Like most things in life, the difference between the two is reliant on timing and opinion.

For me, Go As a River was much like that peach that needed a bit more development, and it failed to live up to its hype for two main reasons:

🍑 In a story about hardship and overcoming, I want to feel the story as though experiencing it first hand, deeply connected with the main character. Lacking in dialogue and created with broad strokes, I found Victoria to be very one-dimensional. And because she fell flat to me, I found it hard to empathize with her or appreciate her growth throughout the storyline.

🍑 But most concerning for me was the unnecessary addition of an indigenous character. Diverse characterization is important when purposefully used to create awareness and necessary perspective. Instead, this representation tokenizes the indigenous and simply provides a platform for racial slurs and a white character’s growth.

This book made for thoughtful conversation in my buddy read with @backporchpages @bookmarked.by.becky @chicagobooklover and @thats.one.for.the.books.

While this wasn’t as juicy and sweet as I’d expected, it’s worth noting that my opinion is the outlier.

This was very slow to get into. Multiple timelines and flashbacks. I wasn’t a fan of the main character.

Go as a River is such a beautiful, lyrical book I still feel the hole it left when I finished it. Victoria's family has owned and managed Colorado's only successful peach orchard for generations. Her mother, and beloved cousin and aunt were killed in a car accident leaving Victoria the only female in a family of men. Her brother, Seth, is a cruel and wild boy, her father is still drowning in the grief for his lost wife, and her uncle has been damaged by the war with no hope of recovering. On a trip to town to drag a drunken Seth home for chores she meets the charming, gorgeous Wilson Moon. and her life is changed forever. Secret meetings result in a changed future for everyone involved and Victoria finds herself alone, fleeing to the hills where she tries to take control of her fate and survive on her own. As the wilderness threatens to win, Victoria returns to civilization only to find it moved along without her. Only her very ill father remains on the farm and the government is buying land that will be underwater once the Gunnison River is dammed. Still Victoria finds a way to move on, and another way to survive as she tries to "go as a river" as Wilson taught her long ago - flowing forward and onward and finding a way around obstacles. I read this in one sitting, with a lot of tissues. The story is beautiful and awful in itself, but Read's descriptions of nature and the wilderness make it so you can hear the bird song and the music of the river. Fans of books like Where the Crawdads Sing will love this book. It will provide a lot of discussion for book clubs as well. Many, many thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read the ARC.

Wow ! This book was so good. A must read for 2023. It reminded me so much of Where the Crawdads Sing. It is a beautifully written story that takes place in Colorado. I loved the way the author described the landscape. Victoria Nash run the household on her family’s peach farm. This book deals with love, courage, and friendship. Victoria truly follows her heart.