Coming of Age tale surrounding the only black young adult in a New England town, told alternately through her childhood eyes and her 16 year old self. Generations of trauma come through as she begins a correspondence with an Auntie she had never known, but who grew up with her now missing father.

Swift River tells the story of Diamond, who is the only Black person in her small town. When I say only, I mean only. The Black community never replenished in her area after their forced expulsion in the early 1900s. Fast forward to the 1980s. Diamond's father, a Black man, disappears when she is 7 years old. Before Diamond and her mother can declare him legally deceased, they must wait 7 years, and that time passes like a chaotic adventure for her. Diamond's mother can't hold a job, can't drive, and takes opiates to treat her chronic pain from a car accident. Her mother vows to never get behind the wheel of a car again, and they hitchhike everywhere. When Diamond turns 16, she decides to get her license, knowing it's her ticket to freedom even if it upsets her mother.

As someone who was raised in a chaotic household without stability, Swift River spoke to me. The story is a conversation about overcoming adversity, coming-of-age, protecting heritage, and defining family. The context Essie Chambers created in the history of Diamond's town was remarkable and unique. Chambers shifted between the past and present so beautifully throughout the book, creating a deeply layered story. Swift River was so well done and I can't wait to see what else Chambers writes.

For me this was something of a mixed bag. Yes, a powerful story of discrimination with a long historical tale. A strong mother/daughter narrative. A plausible portrait of small town life, often but not always mean. And the author has a refreshing voice, unpredictable, funny, plangent. And yet I found the story baggy, short on dynamic. Yes, thankfully it dodged the obvious solutions and easy fixes. But otherwise it could feel circular and repetitive.
But overall, it’s an impressive debut and suggests the author is one to watch.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of Swift River in exchange for my review.

Swift River follows Diamond, daughter to a Black father and white mother living as the only biracial/dark-skinned inhabitant in Swift River. Diamond’s father has disappeared and her mother is unable to hold down a steady job. Diamond is on the verge of adulthood and trying to understand her own cultural and biological heritage, which her mother is fundamentally unable to understand or assist her with, when a letter from her father’s family arrives and starts to fill in some gaps that help Diamond understand the town and the family’s history.

This was a patient story that unfolded bit by bit. I enjoyed it, but for me it was ultimately not terribly memorable. I do think that it could help people who aren't typically able to find themselves in books feel seen, and I'm glad that it exists for that reason.

An exciting debut. Swift River tells the coming of age story of Diamond Newberry, she is the daughter of a white woman and a disappeared Black man. Not in the sense that he left, but he is declared missing after his sneakers and other belongings were found d by the river bank. When Diamond’s dad goes missing, she is the only remaining Black person in Swift River. This is a great discomfort for Diamond, trying to live comfortably in her skin. But discomfort often brings about discovery. And it is in discovering the truth of her Father’s beginnings that she in turn discovers herself. The humorous prose keeps the novel from descending into depression mode, and for a debut novelist this is a remarkable feat, and one that should be celebrated as readers embrace this story of resilience resistance and redemption. To know one’s personal and familial history is to be properly protected and propelled ever forward. Big thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced DRC.

Swift River is the story of Diamond Newberry and how her life is inexplicably tied to Swift River, race, and injustice. While there were sections that were difficult to read from a thematic perspective, Essie Chambers does a great job at bringing the characters to life. I found that I could really relate to these characters and understand both their pain and joy.

I really enjoyed this book. The writing was incredibly intimate but unpretentious. The characters were a joy to spend time with, each fully drawn and heartbreakingly flawed. The small moments that the author was able to capture with such beauty and authenticity, such insight, were my favorite part of the reading experience. My only small gripe is that the story wraps up too abruptly but overall this is a book I will think about for quite some time,

This touching story follows Diamond Newberry, a young Black girl navigating the challenges of identity and belonging in her hometown marked by historical injustices and the mysterious absence of her father. Through Diamond’s journey, readers witness the importance of older generations in shaping the future. ‘Swift River’ is an inspiring read that highlights the power of literature to connect us with diverse experiences. I highly recommend it for its relatable storyline. Thanks to Simon & Schuster for providing an ARC copy. This book has left a lasting impact on me.

Book Review: Swift River by Essie Chambers

Essie Chambers’ captivating novel Swift River, readers are transported to the enchanting yet mysterious setting of the Swift River, where family secrets and personal discovery intertwine. At the heart of the story is Diamond Newberry, a compelling character whose presence adds depth and intrigue to the narrative.

Chambers’ prose beautifully captures the essence of the Swift River , painting vivid scenes of lush landscapes and the flowing river that serves as a backdrop to the characters’ lives. Diamond Newberry’s role in the story is pivotal, bringing to light hidden truths and challenging her, to confront her past in unexpected ways.

What makes Swift River a standout novel is its blend of atmospheric storytelling and compelling character development. Chambers masterfully weaves together elements of mystery, family dynamics, and self-discovery, keeping readers engaged from start to finish. Diamond Newberry’s enigmatic presence adds an intriguing layer to the plot, making this book a must-read for those who enjoy immersive and thought-provoking fiction.

Overall, Swift River is a gem of a novel, offering both escapism and introspection. Essie Chambers’ storytelling prowess shines brightly in this evocative tale set against the backdrop of a captivating landscape.

Thank you Net Galley and Simon and Shuster for an ARC of this book for an honest review.
This book was focused on a time in the 80s in an old mill town. Diamond is the only black girl in town. She is also very overweight. It’s heartbreaking to read as you try to imagine how that would be for her. Her father has been missing for 7 years. Her mother is white and her father was black so she feels very much alone in this town. They are very poor. They walk and hitchhike everywhere they go. Her mother keeps telling her all they can buy when they declare her father is dead. There’s a whole lot of paperwork that needs done and her mother has nothing done. This is a coming of age book that I had some trouble getting into but is very well written.

Set in the mid 1980's, mostly in a small New England town, this is the story of a close mother and daughter living on the edge. Diamond's father disappeared years ago without a trace, and her mother has gone off the rails since then. Their only hope financially is to get the father declared dead in order to collect his life insurance. Meanwhile, Diamond is attempting to escape her restricted life by secretly taking driving lessons and by corresponding with her father's family who live in the South. As her father's family's history is described in letters, Diamond learns about the terrible price the family paid due to prevalent prejudice and racism. This is a novel about resilience, women's strength, and family.

This was a strong four star novel for me.
Initially I was intrigued by the artwork on the cover - a person floating down a rushing river, not struggling, just watching what is going by. I wanted to know more.
The story is just as intriguing. It is a coming-of-age story written in Diamond’s voice. Diamond is a young biracial girl living with her Ma and Pop in a New England mill town. Then Pop disappears, leaving only his old sneakers by the river. Has he drowned or did he just move on without his family? We hear of Diamond’s life as the only Black person in the town of Swift River (now that Pop has vanished), her insecurities as an obese young woman, a poor child whose clothes come from Goodwill, with a somewhat erratic mother. We also learn of the events that led up to Pop’s disappearance, but a large part of the book introduces the rest of Pop’s family going back to the early 1900s. So Diamond, who thought her only relative was Ma, finds a whole new family to support her. Her cousin Lena said, “Our story is gonna fill you up, make you stand straighter. It’s a good one.” And it is. Pop’s side of the family contains strong, able women and we get to hear their stories.
Diamond is a very likable character. She is intelligent and strong, and able to deal with the teasing and bullying that come her way. She is determined to become independent from Ma, and her concealed driving lessons are an attempt to escape from racist Swift River. Apparently she does manage to get away, because one sentence reveals her future - reaching Atlanta, Canada and New York and she has a child.
I would love to hear more of her life as her horizons expand. And did Pop really drown? I am still unsure. Maybe he did just move on. Maybe he and Diamond reconnect at some point? I would love to know.
If I have any criticism of this book, it would be the rather difficult-to-follow timelines. I was confused by the end, so I read the whole book again. This was no hardship, because Diamond’s personality enlivens every page. By the end of the second reading I had a much better grasp of the story and could enjoy the language more.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing the free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Swift River is a story filled with beautiful prose and a compelling main character (Diamond) that focuses closely around themes of racism, poverty, being a biracial teenager in the 1980s, and generational trauma. I sincerely appreciated Chamber's writing and the way she captivated my attention with Diamond. Diamond was a great character, fully of complexity and trauma that she needed to work through. And I loved watching Diamond process her trauma and, through new experiences, realize that her way of living wasn't always healthy or safe, that her lack of connection with her black family was something she didn't know she longed for, and how generational trauma trickles down until she has to be the one to break the cycle.

Despite all I loved about the main character, the story didn't always hold my interest. The letters from the early 1900s were interesting , and initially I thought they were going to be used to piece together a mystery- specifically around Diamond's father's disappearance. However, the letters Fell flat for me. They did give Diamond the connection to her ancestors and demonstrated how deep the trauma ran as the only black family in white New England, but I thought they would have a bigger impact ON Diamond (as in, Diamond would take this knowledge and apply it somehow to her current life OR the letters would parallel Diamond's life, but they didn't). Similarly, the moments where Diamond was younger in 1980 only highlighted her father's growing unrest and instability. This had the same problem with the letters where there were no parallels or connections made from the past to the present. I think I would have enjoyed it a little more if there was only two timelines instead of three to keep track of. My favorite parts of the story were 16-year-old Diamond and I think sprinkling in moments of flashback would have sufficed.

All this is to say that I did finish the book, enjoyed parts of it and other bits not so much. I think this will still have a large audience and will certainly recommend it to friends!

This book brought me back to my teenage years, specifically difficulties I had with my own mother. The main character Diamond was so interesting to me. Her life was incomprehensible to me but yet I related to her hopes and dreams for her future. It did jump around a little bit and it wasn't always easy for me to follow, but I am extremely glad I read this book and would recommend it to anyone!

Swift River by Essie Chambers is such a poignant and phenomenal debut novel. The representation and character descriptions were very well executed, and I think Essie does a fantastic job of capturing the complexities and joys of being a biracial adolescent who is trying to figure out their identity while learning more about a side of their family previously unknown. There's this amazing exploration that the reader gets to witness. Also, fantastic freaking job on capturing the beauty of Blackness and Black culture--its written more like an invitation to this sneak peak into this world where the readers gets to go on this journey and weather the highs and lows of the experience. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

Do you have any idea what it's like to be a fat adolescent girl? How about a black kid in a white family living in a scrappy mill town? How about both? Here's one perspective on that kind of life. But it's not all depressing - not at all. There are cheerful moments, hilarious situations, and some bright shining characters. It's not quite a can't-put-down title, but it certainly does pull the reader along into the current of the lives and river, family and community, roads (that mostly have to be hitch-hiked in the beginning) and landscape. The dialog is as real as can be, especially when Diamond forgets that she's not speaking to her mother for the next two days. Full of hope, mostly knocked down but surviving to lift its head another day, the book is a window into the lives you might imagine as you drive through a town with disheveled homes, dilapidated out buildings, and skinny dogs roaming the street. But you would be wrong, and here you can read something more like how it really is.

I am floored that this poignant, heartbreaking, and beautifully crafted book is a debut novel!

Diamond Newburry is a teen girl in a small, fading New England mill town. Since her Pop disappeared in 1980, Diamond is now the only Black girl she knows. She is relentlessly teased for her skin color and her weight, and struggles with her home life where she is raised in poverty by her white mother. In the summer of 1987, when Diamond is 16, she dreams of getting her license and breaking free from her hometown, while her mother tries to get her Pop legally declared dead so they can collect on his life insurance money and finally buy their house back from the bank. That summer, Diamond also begins writing letters back and forth with her father's cousin in Georgia, and begins connecting to the history of the Black side of her family that was lost to her.

The character work in this novel was masterful. Of course, Diamond herself was the standout in the story as she struggled to find herself and keep from disappearing inward under the pressure of her hometown, the bullying and suffocating home life and atrempts to come to terms with her own identity. But also, her parents were their own tragic characters, one of the many examples in life where love isn't enough to keep a relationship from turning toxic under the strain of survival. Diamond's friend Shelley, too, shows another complex story of a young girl trapped under the weight of her family, trying to break free.

The book explored many layers of identity through Diamond, her family, her town, and their history -- race, class, gender, body image, family dynamics. I really liked how the author used the letters from Diamond's aunt as a way to reveal the painful history of her family and of their town. While simple flashbacks also could have accomplished this, the decision to use letters made it feel like the three generations of women were in conversation with one another, which created a sense of connection between the past and present. I thought that was so well done.

I'm normally someone who needs a <i>little</i> more of a plot to drive my reading, and sometimes I did feel things were moving a bit slow, but I did get very emotionally connected to the characters and that kept me invested in finding out how the summer would end for all of them.

4.75 stars 🌟

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC to read and review.

It’s the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond is secretly learning to drive. She and her mom tend to hitchhike or walk everywhere since her father disappeared seven years ago. This is especially difficult for Diamond as she’s overweight and, since her father is gone, the only Black person in Swift River. But Diamond receives a letter from a relative on her dad’s side of the family she didn’t know existed, and soon learns more about her father and family. As she and her mom try to declare her dad legally dead so they can collect his life insurance, Diamond begins to learn about her father’s past, and slowly begins to uncover the truth of who she is.

This is a literary work that is character-driven rather than plot heavy. I loved the characters and they were wonderfully written. They were unique with interesting and varied personalities, and most of them were relatable in their own way. I really liked Diamond as a character and how she was written. She’s overweight, and while it is a part of her character, the author didn’t choose to make it her defining feature as is so often the case. I also really liked the portrayal of Shelly and Diamond’s mom; honestly, the secondary characters were all quite strong.

There are letters interspersed throughout the chapters that provide some family background and history. The letters date to the 1980s and 1910s. There are also flashbacks to when Diamond was young, giving insight into her father and her childhood. I enjoyed getting to read these letters as they provided interesting family background, and it was fascinating getting to learn about Diamond’s heritage at the same time that she was.

This coming-of-age literary fiction with themes of racism, poverty, and family was strongly written with an atmospheric setting. I highly recommend checking this one out. Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for allowing me to read this work, which will be published June 4th, 2024. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The book evokes a range of emotions but ultimately feels disjointed, with gaps that I had to fill in myself. While the story is engaging, the characters lack depth and connection. Diamond feels somewhat flat, though this may have been intentional as she's a teenager. The letters were a highlight for me, and I found myself wishing that the main storyline could have flowed in the same captivating manner. Overall, it's a good read but left me wanting more from the characters and the story itself.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for providing the ARC and opportunity to provide an honest review.

This book took me a while to read. I’m not sure why. It kept me wanting more, to know how the story ended. Mainly to find out about “Pops”. The book packed up racism, family history, secrets, mother-daughter relationships, abandonment, courage, determination, and resilience all into one with a story told from Diamond’s perspective. The author gathered Diamond’s thought process as she grew and became more knowledgeable of her family history. You could see the changes as the pages turned. I enjoyed all of this as well as the letters from her relatives letting us in on the secrets. I did however, feel like it was left unfinished. The author summed up the book pretty quickly. The whereabouts of “Pops” was never truly confirmed, it sort of was left to the imagination of the reader (I suspected the worst from the beginning). I guess it is supposed to be insinuated, but I like endings to be clear to provide some sort of closure. That was the main part that was lacking to me. Overall, it made me FEEL. It made me want to get to know more about my family and it made me feel happy that Diamond was able to do so amongst other things that she wanted to achieve.

Thank you Simon & Schuster for the ARC of this novel.