I just... couldn't get into it. Entirely too long, and I didn't really feel for any of the characters.

Received a free copy from Netgalley.

A really slow book. I like the setting and the fact that there are strong female characters. But nothing about it captures you.

Need to be in the right mood for this one - it’s slow but could be perfect for a still summer evening! Loved the small town life, really hit the complicated relationships on the head.

The Waters is a unique "rural noir" story that includes some magical realism. It's a story of a family of women who live on an island in rural Michigan, known as The Waters, a place that's as alive as the colorful characters that inhabit it. .The story is a bit meandering, but ultimately comes together beautifully, with lessons about the light and dark sides of life, love, and community.

This was an interesting story of a family of women raised in the Michigan swampland. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and the hard hands they had been dealt.

The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell is a Brothers Grimm fairy tale-like rendition of a rural noir narrative with exquisite descriptions of the land and the people formed by it. Hermine “Herself” Zook has three daughters. Primrose, the eldest, is a driven, justice-seeking California lawyer. Mary Rose, called Molly, is a rigid, church-going nurse who lives nearby. Rose Thorn, who’s lazy and beautiful, is desired by most men in their area of southwest Michigan. Eleven-year-old Dorothy, Hermine’s granddaughter called Donkey, because she was fed donkey milk when she was born, lives with Hermine on her island in the midst of vast wetlands. Donkey is a genius who loves math, has never been to school, and has the characteristics of a woodland sprite. The Waters is set within 6,000 acres of state-protected land near the fictional town of Whiteheart, Michigan where Hermine cleverly restricts access to her island home.

Campbell’s Once Upon a River is one of my long-time favorite novels and The Waters is reminiscent of that book in its gorgeous rendering of the land, the people who populate it, and the strength and resilience built into the main characters. The Waters opens like a fairy tale with “Once upon a time M’Sauga Island was the place desperate mothers abandoned baby girls and where young women went seeking to prevent babies altogether.” The Waters highlights the importance of women having the right and ability to determine if they should have children while also celebrating women who choose to have them and caring for the children themselves.

The Waters is slow to build and readers desiring a fast-paced novel won’t find it here. What they will find is a deep and abiding concern for taking care of our land and for making sure that we heal the earth and those it harms when our byproducts do damage. Campbell explores the elusiveness of these tasks:
“In the Michigan state government, environmental protections were relaxed, and the plans to clean up the mounds of paper mill waste in the Waters were delayed for lack of funding. The legislature justified these decisions by saying they would instead institute tax breaks to benefit businesses, although no business in Whiteheart benefitted from the lower taxes.

The Whiteheart post office closed that winter, so everybody now had to drive eight or ten miles around the Waters to the Potawatomi branch, and people missed talking to their neighbors while waiting in line. Teenagers, always the most creative and innovative members of any community, learned how to cook methamphetamine over burn barrel fires. A handful of girls cut themselves secretly with razor blades for the rush of sensation it gave them, and one boy shot himself in the head with his father’s pistol because of how some other kids talked to him at school. He didn’t die, but people said maybe he should have, given how he ended up.”

Summing it Up:
Read The Waters to enjoy its portrait of rural southern Michigan, reap its environmental insights, and meet Donkey, a unique, otherworldly character. Stick with it for its caring ending and the way it tells the story slant. If you haven’t read Once Upon a River, rectify that immediately. Campbell is one of our best writers, a National Book Award finalist, and a strong supporter of the environment. The Waters is a “Read with Jenna” Book Club selection.

A Note: Jenna Bush Hager of the Today Show’s “Read with Jenna” Book Club says “if you loved Where the Crawdads Sing, you’re going to love, and I’m saying love, our first read of 2024.” I didn’t find the books to be that similar other than on the surface. Yes, both feature precocious girls in rural settings, but The Waters is a meditation with an otherworldly feel whereas Where the Crawdads Sing is primarily a murder mystery with a realistic exploration of flora and fauna.
Rating: 4 Stars

Publication Date: January 9, 2024

Category: Fiction, Gourmet, Super Nutrition, Book Club

Author Website: https://www.bonniejocampbell.net/
What Others are Saying:
Foreword Reviews: https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/the-waters/
Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bonnie-jo-campbell/the-waters/
Los Angeles Times: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2024-01-03/an-off-the-grid-herbalist-hits-the-skids-in-an-earthy-new-bonnie-jo-campbell-novel
The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/12/27/bonnie-jo-campbell-waters-book-review/
“Baggy writing, drawn-out scenes, and twee character names aren’t doing this story any favors, but Campbell’s immersive descriptions manage to suck the reader into its swampy setting. Patient readers will be carried away.” —Publishers Weekly

I didn't dig the writing style. It was really slow and painfully so at times. It had some good moments, for example the character development was pretty decent but it lost me completely with the animal cruelty. Gross.

I'm sure I'm in the minority here but it was 2.5 stars for me

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

I wanted to love this book. A book about a rural area and several generations of strong women? Sign me up. Reading it, however, I discovered that this book doesn't live up to the promise.

I found this book to be so slow. So, so slow. I even put it down for a few weeks and returned to it. The pacing is glacial. I also found that there were several moments where it skips around in timelines and what is happening in the present as opposed to the past or future. It all jumbles together, especially near the end. Then there were whole swaths of pages where things happen that have little to nothing to do with the overarching plot.

I also found the allegory about toxic masculinity to be a little on the nose and preachy. It isn't seamlessly woven into the story. Instead, it's glaringly obvious the point the author wants to make, but she's wrapping it in the context of the women of this small island and their relationships to men. There's just something about it that doesn't work for me.

Overall, I just didn't enjoy reading it. It's far too long, and to be honest, dull. I hope that other readers find it more enjoyable than I did.

I did not finish this book. I really loved the story of the women in this book. However, the writing style wasn't my cup of tea and I struggled to get past it to really get into the story.

I plan to come back to this book when it comes out as an audiobook!

The struggle and the strength of the women in the Waters is evident throughout. I love the vivid natural world that envelopes the story. The book starts to sludge along though, and does get hard to slod through, much like the swamp setting. If you can get through it, you won't be disappointed. My big disappointment was that rape was needed as a main storyline conflict.

Happy Publishing Day. Book Review: The Waters
Stars: 3.5 x 5
Author: Bonnie Jo Campbell @bonniejocampbell
Publisher: W.W. Norton and Company @w.w.norton
Thank You @netgalley for this ARC

This book started out a bit slow for me and then I just couldn’t put it down.
This is a book about family and friends who are totally dysfunctional.
The book is set in Michigan. Hermine Zook is an elderly herbalist/natural healer who lives on an island in the middle of the great Massaguaga Swamp AKA The Waters which is also filled with snakes and mosquitos and much more. Hermine knows as “Herself” has three daughters, Prim, Molly and Rose Thorn. Rose has a daughter named Dorothy whose nickname is Donkey. Donkey Iives with her Grandmother and her mother comes and go. At this point in time Rose Thorn had been away for a few years and has decided to return. When Rose returns the local town celebrates. Even Titus Jr. is happy to see her again but still in love with her doesn’t understand why she would not marry him all those years ago. Dorothy is so happy to see her mother and there are many questions she needs answers too. Who is her father. Why would she not marry the man she loves, Titus Jr. Why did Herself send her husband away all those years ago? There is so much beauty and beast about this book. It is filled with love, hate, family secrets, family relationships, sexual assaults, “animal” cruelty, support for those in need and so much more.

The author has done a beautiful job writing about all of it and it will all meld together. By the end of book all of the questions are answered and you will root for this family. I would of given this book 4 stars but since it started out slow I only gave it
3.5 stars. Definitely a book to read on a nice winter weekend.

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Rose Thorn and Titus have had a thing forever. Rose Thorn disappears and later reappears with a 3 day old baby. Titus knows it isn't his and his insistence that Rose Thorn tell her all the details regarding the conception prevents Rose Thorn and the baby and Titus from becoming a family.

Rose Thorn leaves the baby with her mother Hermine Zook on a swampy island.

Mississauga rattlesnakes are featured prominently and consistently throughout this book.

I was anxious to read this book because of the Michigan setting; but honestly, it seemed very foreign to this Michigander. Rounding up to 4 stars (the snake thing was a little too creepy for me).

Many thanks to NetGalley for introducing me (yet once again) to a new to me author. Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Company for approving my request to read the advance read copy in exchange for an honest review. Publication date is 09 Jan 2024.

An engaging, and utterly enthralling story about women and the men who surround them. Set in a rural area, the every day challenges the ladies fight through are different than those living in the city. The Waters is a fanciful, magic inducing love story that kept me turning the pages.

Thanks to NetGalley for this arc

The Waters
Bonnie Jo Campbell
January 09, 2024

Isolated residents live in Whiteheart, Michigan in an area known as ‘The Waters’ where an island is surrounded by surly waters. Few people inhabit it. The cottage that stands alone amongst the jungle growth is in the maze of the landscape.The owner is Hermine Zook aka Herself. The lone mother of three daughters, two of which have moved away from the Great Massasauga Swamp looking to build a life among the intelligent civilizations. The youngest, Rose Thorn would stay, then leave to visit her sister on the west coast, then work her way back to her beau, Titus Clay, Jr.
Herself is a healer. Finds her meds and ways via the wildlife of the island or the serum of the rattlesnakes that breed within the waters.
The Waters will be published on January 09, 2024 by W.W. Norton and Company. I was able to read Campbell’s latest gem via NetGalley. To the readers who venture into this extremely intelligent novel, I advise to take the time and the patience to continue with this ‘marathon’ book. It is an exceptional story that will be true to her award winning talents. Truthfully, I became lost in the characters a time or two and went back for a review. It’s one that I can highly recommend. Do Enjoy!

Thank you NetGalley & W.W. Norton and Company for an advanced copy. This books shows how sweet but also brutal rural life can be in Michigan. We follow a family of women as they navigate their lives in a community with grating characters. This was a new genre for me that I was intrigued to explore, but unfortunately the story was tough to finish. The first half was very slow, and the writing felt like a rollercoaster. It did seem to pick up in the second half, but I left wanting more. I also didn’t love the animal violence, and it was hard to get past it.

"Love is a sharp hollow tooth."

Man, I pretty much hated this book, but it was undeniably good

I wanted to slap nearly every character for being so stubborn and set in their ways that they became blind to the needs of those around them, AND for placing so much responsibility on a young girl who really only wanted to go to school. ALSO, there are highly detailed, horrific instances of animal cruelty.

On the other hand . . .

This is first and foremost a book about women - three sisters, one of the women's daughter, and one domineering legend of a matriarch who looms large not only over her offspring, but over the neighboring town as well. She's a woman townsfolk both rely on AND resent. The main characters live on an island, accessible only by a sort of drawbridge controlled by the women on the island. Pretty cool, I thought. As for the menfolk, well . . . right up until the end of the book when an emergency forces them to "man up," male characters exist merely as sperm donors, or catalysts for crises that the women must handle.

If none of this has dissuaded you, you may find the book to be an involving, immersive, character-driven read. I certainly did. As I've said before, I don't need to like characters to find them interesting, and the womenfolk of this novel were pretty fascinating. This is one that'll stick with me for quite a while.

THE WATERS fits the genre of "rural noir" to a T, and I really enjoyed the representation of a deaf (going deaf over time) character, which I was not expecting from the synopsis of this book. I would be interested in reading some reviews from deaf readers on the representation.

Another point in its favor, THE WATERS may just have the most magically beautiful and mysterious cover of 2024. It will be hard to beat.

Great book -

I am so thankful to WW Norton Books, Netgalley, and Bonnie Jo Campbell for granting me advanced digital access to this mystically fun literary fiction read before its pub date of January 9, 2024.

I really love this book is so well written. Every character in this book had such a wonderful name and such wonderful background relating to each other. There are 3 sisters. Who had different personalities. You live in a small town in w h I t a h e a. The mother in the book called herself. She was a medicine doctor living on the island and she provided stuff to get rid of babies or take babies in the basket. The town really did not like her, but they all respected her because they helped her out a lot. The oldest one called PRI M lived in California. She was a lawyer.. Mary was a nurse who lived in a trailer park close to her parents. Mother was married to a man named will, but he lived in the big house and eventually he left. She saved him from a snakes all over the islands. The youngest one named rose thorns was very rebellious person and she lived with her mother. She liked a boy named Titus.. This was a really rocking relationship on her off again. She was also raped by titus's father. She left when she found out she was pregnant and her mother sent a pills out to california but she chose to have the baby. She came home and her daughter named. Donkey. Her mother kept disappearing all the time so her grandmother raised her. It's a lot of issues in this book about insects. And people who do not expect people. It's awesome mystery book and a love story at the same time. Everybody is related as you read the book. You'll find out who is related and who's not. The snake plays a very important part of this book as well. Because donkey fell in love with her . This girl was very very smart. And she helped her grandmother out She lost part of her hand. She started to find out things about the past, but everybody was very cautious around her. Titus had another girlfriend and he really liked her. But rose thorn got no way as usual. All these women are very strong when they How to be to put . They showed a lot of character in this book and now they stood up to their man.

Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton and Company for this opportunity to read rate and review this arc which will be available wide on January 9,2024!

This was heavy. Not clunky or anything but the subject matter was heavy. It gave me such a depression reading it. I don’t know if I could actually recommend it. The names of the characters were freaking off putting. Honestly it felt like I was reading a really pretentious art house book trying to be gritty and raw and real but it just fell flat. It left a bad taste in my brain and a lasting funk on my soul.