I love Author Leah Weiss’s style of writing. She paints such strong, distinctive characters that make this story incredibly satisfying. It is a book FULL of heart.

My favorite character is Sadie Blue. Born and raised in the backwoods Appalachian town of Baines Creek, I rooted for this girl from the start. Sadie had so much potential to have a future beyond Appalachia, but due to foolish teenage impulses, she becomes pregnant and marries an abusive thug named Roy. It tugged at my heart that the community clearly saw signs of abuse but remained silent, her dismissive grandmother, Gladys, especially made me angry. She was a compelling character, but I never could warm up to her.

My second favorite is Kate Shaw, a teacher who comes to Baines Creek to teach the children of this impoverished community, a community who doesn’t take kindly to outsiders. I loved Kate’s strength and compassion and admired her way of bringing hope to Sadie Blue.

I felt sad the book ended before I was ready, but there were enough loose ends that it makes me hopeful there will be a sequel. I can’t remember when I last had so many favorite characters born from one book! Highly recommend to book groups as it would make for some lively conversation.

Leah Weiss hits the literary scene with electrifying Southern fiction August 22, 2017. If the Creek Don’t Rise is a story told with tremendous heart, and it’s one you won’t want to miss. Weiss writes with swagger and grace, and her prose crackles with conviction. Thanks go to Net Galley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the DRC, which I received free in exchange for this honest review.

Our tale unfolds in the hills and hollers of Appalachian North Carolina in the mid-twentieth century. Moonshine stills are as jealously guarded as ever, but now a person can get killed over a Ginseng patch as well. Formal education isn’t valued by everyone, and it’s hard to come by. Baines Creek is home to only one educated man, and that’s the minister, Eli Perkins, whose haunting early memories include the exorcism of Pharrell Moody; imagine a phalanx of grim, weapon-bearing deacons converging on a dark woods.

But now, Eli looks forward to having an educated person to talk to. The new teacher, Kate Shaw is a great big woman, middle-aged. She wears trousers “like a man”, and gossip is thick in the air before she’s even met the community. She tells everyone that she was fired from her last job, a smart move since it takes some of the wind out of the venomous rumor mill that greets her.

But Eli is smitten.

Another person that likes Kate immediately is Sadie Blue. Sadie is seventeen and newly married; the nuptials were a combination wager and shotgun affair. Now she’s isolated, lonely, and illiterate, but in Kate, a kindly soul that listens to her without judging, Sadie sees hope. Eli asks what Sadie thinks of the new teacher, and she says, “Got her a globe that spins…Gonna teach me to read.”

Sadie’s mother left her when she was tiny, and so Gladys has raised her. Gladys is Sadie’s grandmother, and she raised her alone after the death of her husband. She doesn’t want Sadie to marry Roy, but she also knows she can’t raise Sadie’s baby herself. Now Sadie is part wife, part captive in the home of Roy Tupkin, a rattlesnake-mean abuser. Gladys isn’t the only one that doesn’t like Roy. Marris, who is close to Gladys, observes that “Roy needs killing”, and the sentiment is shared by Kate, who tells the reader that she would like to dismember him limb from limb. “I’d use a rusty saw.”

To be sure, it’s a violent tale full of hardscrabble characters living in horrifying rural poverty. Running water? Maybe, but probably not. Food stamps? Don’t even think it. Worthwhile job skills in Baines Creek involve knowing how to drive in the pitch dark around narrow mountain switchbacks without falling off, and knowing how to package a body for burial when no coffin is ready to hand. There’s a hint of Deliverance here, along with a voice that bears a similarity at times to that of Sharyn McCrumb as well as Fannie Flagg, winking in and out in places, yet it is never derivative. The grimness is broken up with stark, surprising humor that dodges out from behind a tree and catches us unaware.

I highlighted multiple brilliant character sketches, but I can’t quote all of them here; Birdie, Jerome Biddle, Marris, and Tattler Swann are all unforgettable. I would want to see this movie if I were assured no one would change any part of Weiss’s prose.

This story has created a great deal of buzz, and rightly so. Don’t let yourself be left out. This story is recommended to all that love great fiction and that have a strong literacy level.

This story reaches in and grabs your emotions. The storyline is wonderfully written and I didn't want to put it down. Definite winner.

“Sweet Jesus, help me. I clutch my hands together in desperate prayer. I promise to be good after this. All I want is to not get beat up. Find my special life. Live up to my potential. Read by myself. Kill Roy Tupkin.” These are the words of Sadie Blue, the battered but defiant protagonist of Leah Weiss’ incredible debut novel. This was a powerful and dark read about the cycle of poverty and one girl’s desire to dare and rise above her circumstance to become something more. Set in the 70’s in a small Appalachian mountain town, Sadie Blue is a teenage bride whose husband beats her regularly just because he can. She is parentless, uneducated and there seems to be no way out for her. Her grandmother lives just up the road, but refuses to help her as she is fighting demons of her own. Salvation comes for Sadie in the form of Kate Shaw; an educated, forward thinker, and Baines Creek’s newest teacher. Kate is shocked upon her arrival to see the level of poverty that the town lives in but she recognizes Sadie’s potential immediately. When things with Roy escalate past the point of no return one night, the stage is set for things to change for everyone involved.
There is so much to say about this book. First of all, it is written in Appalachian dialect, so it takes some getting used to initially. However, I thought this was a brilliant move on the part of Weiss because it gives the entire story such authenticity. There are multiple points of views presented throughout this novel, so you get a full understanding of the town and its people. The story is told from flashbacks between the past and the present but the transitions from character to character are smooth and very easy to follow. There are a lot of unsavory, awful people in this story and I fluctuated from shock to anger many times as I read. I have to say that my favorite character was Birdie -- she came across as a mix between a medicine woman and a voodoo queen. I loved her interactions with Samuel and all his “friends” and I am so glad that Weiss incorporated her in to the story.
And that ending!!! It was abrupt, but perfectly done. This book is certainly thought provoking and would make an excellent book club pick as it touches on several hard topics. There is so much heart and grit packed in to these pages that it is very hard to believe that this book is a debut. The people of Baines Creek have it hard. They are tough, they are battered, and evil runs rampant in their small mountain town. And still, like the creek, the people rise.

“I thought she was jealous cause I was happy. I thought I was smart and loved a bad man turned good. I’ve been on a losing streak a long time.”

Every once in awhile, a book comes along that completely knocks me off my feet and leaves me thinking about it for days and weeks and months after. Leah Weiss’s debut novel, If the Creek Don't Rise, is one of those, and I cannot give enough praise to her writing. This is an extraordinary first novel about the south, family, and survival.

“You knock them fake stars outta your blind eyes, Sadie Blue, or you gonna lay with the devil and live in hell. When that happens, I can’t help you.”

Sadie Blue, pregnant with her first child, has been married to Roy Tupkin for less than a month, but it’s enough time for her to realize she never should have even looked at him. But in Appalachia, survival rules, and no one has time to save Sadie when they’re all trying to save themselves. When a new schoolteacher moves to Baines Creek, the remote town where this cast of characters lives, some people begin to see things a little differently, and Sadie might be able to find a way to save herself.

This is not a wimpy book. From the first sentence, we are thrust into the middle of this world, and it is not idyllic. There is poverty, there is abuse, there are families struggling just to survive another day. This book is the very definition of warts and all, and Weiss’s writing is so strong that I felt as though I were in the characters’ homes watching what was happening to them. The story is written so beautifully and honestly, and while it does cover some tough subjects, there is hope, and there are absolutely characters to root for.

Weiss uses multiple points of view throughout the novel, as well as writing in a particular Southern dialect. That can sometimes fall flat in novels, but she did it in such a way that it really helped to distinguish the characters, and I could hear each and every one of them as individuals in my head. Some characters, such as preacher Eli Perkins, are well educated and speak “properly,” and that is reflected in the text. It really added a lot to the story.

If the Creek Don’t Rise is heartbreaking, and parts of it are difficult to read, but it is also a love letter of sorts to the people in that part of the country. Appalachia is often the butt of jokes in the media (I’m sure you can think of a movie or show that’s used it as a joke, or perhaps a derogatory word comes to mind.) and not taken seriously as a culture. While there are real problems in that region, Weiss depicts a group of people who are survivors. They may not be the survivors we see in movies who end up with nice houses and lovely spouses, but they are surviving abuse, poverty, lack of education, and being stuck in a remote area. Their way of life is just as real as anyone else’s. The characters in this novel, and I suspect in real life, may not be worldly, but they are tough. This is a spectacular first novel, and I certainly hope Ms. Weiss has more in store for all of us. I’m along for whatever journey she wants to take me on.

Halfway through reading I went to check who this Leah Weiss was and was really surprised that this is her debut novel. Absolutely superb writing. She is able to draw characters with care and subtlety. Characters which you've already judged before meeting personally but then Weiss comes in and give us the character's perspective and it's a whole new ball game.

So there I am absolutely in love with the writing and the people she is telling me about and also the love she has for the place she is talking about. How she is able to bring out the poverty, the dirt and the mountain which dominates and the soul of the people. And it was nearing the end of the book and a sudden thought came, I am in no way ready for this book to finish and rightly so when the ending came I was not ready and the underpinning story is still loosely held and I felt kind of lost. Maybe I am still lost on that mountain trying to find those people and know more of their story. And the thing is I do not know if this feeling is because of a lack in the book or it's how I am supposed to feel.

Would I read more Weiss - absolutely - looking forward to it in fact.

I devoured this one. The dialect was fascinating, the characters were vivid, and the plot kept me on the edge of my seat. It was over too soon.

“If the creek don’t rise” is the debut novel of author Leah Weiss and it is a punch in the stomach! The reader sinks in the narration and can hardly swim to the surface to catch a breath!

Sadie Blue lives in Baines Creek, a small town in the Appalachia. The year is 1970 and Sadie is only sixteen years old, but she has already been under Roy Tupkin’s spell and she carries his child. She is now his wife without a ring but with all needed paperwork. Sadie has met Roy’s bad side several times and she only tries to keep herself and her unborn baby safe from him. It ain’t easy and it ain’t nice. Roy beats her up for no reason once in awhile, just to remind her who is in charge around there. Sadie will find the courage to stand for herself after the arrival of a newcomer, an outsider, that will give her hope and will make her believe in herself.

Life in the Appalachia is more than difficult. It is a constant struggle. Struggle to bring bread on the table. Struggle to live under leaking roofs. Struggle to walk in shoes full of holes. Struggle to wear worn out clothes. Struggle to live under the same roof with drunks and beaters. Struggle to work and die in the mines for a little more money. Struggle to get some education and what you deserve as a person.

The mountains are full of poverty, ignorance, dirt, filt, impurity, Indian beliefs and folklore. People say that’s how it is on the mountains. Those highlanders are savages and the valley people are civilized. There is only that, what people see and the only way they believe they could help, would be to find a way to drag poverty out of those people. This would be their salvation.

Blood on the shoes and mussy clothes is not something new, so nobody asks questions. Not every person is pure, so nobody asks questions. Whatever happens within a household is that man’s business, so nobody asks questions.

But all these people need is hope, somebody to believe in them and be able to instill hope in them. They need education, they need somebody to love them, so they can love themselves. They need someone to point the light to them and to the joys of life. The need to find the reason to live a happy life, cause in the mud that surrounds them, they see only dark.

Every book promises to transport the reader to another place. Some deliver more than others.

Reading "If the Creek Don't Rise" by Leah Weiss was truly a step back, not only to a different time -- 1970 -- but also to one of the most economically depressed regions of the U.S., the Appalachian Mountains. Everything from the dialogue to the setting descriptions make the story of Baines Creek, N.C., come alive.

The narrative flows from one vivid character to the next -- from pregnant, battered young bride Sadie to fish-out-of-water teacher Kate Shaw. These characters, even the slimy ones like wifebeater Ray Tupkin, all carry heartbreaking secrets that influence their ways of living and the decisions they make. I really enjoyed the way Weiss weaves these characters' stories into a striking tapestry of despair and hope amid devastating poverty.

I was touched by the compassion of Preacher Eli Perkins and especially Kate, who encourages Sadie to find her "special life." Sadie doesn't see anything special about herself, yet I could see it plain as day. I found myself rooting for her, wanting her to succeed in spite of her circumstances. That's how I know I've found a story worth reading and sharing with others.

Certain books require a soundtrack, especially when I'm reading at the gym! Most of my reading of this book was set to the old-timey strains of Shovels n Rope and the Roots Rising playlist on Spotify.

Some of the best books I've read this year have been debut novels. "If the Creek Don't Rise" was no exception.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The book was almost like sitting in a quiet Southern kitchen having sweet iced tea with an old friend. The story is told from various perspectives which I really liked, and I thought that the writing style set the perfect tone throughout. It’s an easy read, steady pace and has a great ending!

I challenge you to put this book down after page 200 or so! Leah Weiss twines us with the lives of her characters in vines of kudzu. I love Eli, Kate, Sadie, Birdie, and Jerome as if they are family. I cannot bear it when Sadie is beaten by her husband, again, or when the vituperative women of the holler go after Kate. This is an entrancing book, that makes me long for the beauty and dread the sorrow of Appalachia

4.5 stars
Leah Weiss, author of the outstanding debut novel If The Creek Don't Rise, considers herself a picky reader saying she looks "for a great story written exceptionally well".   As a reader I'm extremely grateful she applied those standards to her own writing because I could not put this book down.   I was transfixed by the way she used language to capture the essence of Baines Creek, was in awe of the way I could visualise their conditions and hear the sound of her characters' Appalachian dialect.

Told through the first person voices of ten main characters this is the story of the isolated community of Baines Creek.   A place populated by hillbillies, where violence in general is prevalent - domestic violence specifically, where moonshine is drunk to excess, employment and education are equally uncommon, where religion has a high profile and the sherrif has little power.  This is a place where some people behave badly towards others.   A place where ramshackle homes are the norm and where personal hygiene is virtually non-existant.    Sounds awful, and make no mistake I wouldn't want to live there, yet the book was filled with a number of  highly likeable characters.    It was impossible not to love and cheer on Sadie Blue, the central character.    Her tough childhood now seems like easy street by comparison to the life she's wound up with, hitched to Roy Tupkin a downright thug and nasty piece of work.  Her Aunt Marris with a heart of gold,  always helping those more needy than herself, baking for other families, sharing kind words and smiles with everone. Preacher Eli Perkins aways ready with a joke and full of hope for the youth of his town.   Kate Shaw the teacher from out of town who has always felt like a misfit.    She's tall, masculine, educated and agnostic to name just a few of the ways she differs and yet she toughs out the challenges and intimidations thrown her way by those who'd scare her off the mountain.  She befriends the locals by listening and learning instead of looking down upon them.   She cares for the children in her class and really tries to make a difference to their lives. 

So though Leah Weiss picked me up and plopped me squarely in the midst of a whole lot of ugly she offset it perfectly with huge helpings of humanity and compassion and I loved everything about it, and wow what an ending.    I congratulate the author on delivering such a quality debut novel.     Thanks to her, the publishers SOURCEBOOKS Landmark, and NetGalley for the opportunity of reading this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.  It was an absolute delight.

Appalachia in the 1970s is a place of poverty and penance, moonshine and men who run it. Sadie Blue isn’t the first local girl to find herself married to a dangerous drunk, but 15 days after marrying Roy, she learns to regret her decision, even for the sake of the baby. Sadie’s future in rural Baines Creek is bleak at best.

Then a stranger arrives in town, and the longings for a different future that stir in Sadie spring to life. The new teacher is happy to help Sadie realize her dream of learning to read, and her friendship teaches more than letters and words. With her new perspective, Sadie realizes her dreams aren’t impossible, but will she be able to figure out how to make them reality?

If the Creek Don’t Rise was a difficult book for me to read. The abject poverty and the backwards mentality of the residents of Baines Creek were horrifying to me—and I lived in a tiny town in Arkansas for a while, where the mentality and outlook were not too dissimilar from this Appalachian setting. The characters were vivid and believable, even if their natures were sad to me. Sadie is a strong girl trying to overcome her mistakes, and fighting against a mentality of “you made your bed, now lie in it.” I cannot fathom a life or a community like this, but the author brings it to startling, believable life.

(Galley provided by Sourcebooks via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

This was my first Appalachia novel and I have to say at the beginning I wasn't enjoying it and almost gave up. I'm glad I didn't! What a book! Once you get your head around how it's written it's an awesome book on a area and people I didn't know anything about. I'd recommend this book.

Sadie Blue is the main character in If the Creek Don’t Rise and she is the connection that links all the other individuals in this novel. Each of those characters appears in a chapter bearing her/his name that presents their POV and details something of their past that defines who they are. Like Sadie, some of these individuals are endearing or sympathetic people, such as Marris Jones and Eli Perkins. These benevolent characters have a positive impact on Sadie and others in the story. Others are malevolent, angry personages, such as Roy Tupkin and Prudence Perkins, and they serve to weigh down those around them. Each character is flawed in some way. As the story progresses, Sadie slowly begins to develop some backbone, often with the “guidance” of her deceased father, Otis Blue, and we see her grow and change, leading to a surprising ending.

I noticed, however, that several of the characters seem to have dropped out of the storyline and I found myself disappointed, wondering what happened to them. I kept waiting for some of them to reappear, to see if they had any additional impact on the other characters we meet. It wasn’t until I read the “Acknowledgements” section at the end of the book where the author explains how she was inspired by the short-story structure of Olive Kitteridge that I understood that each of the chapters in If the Creek Don’t Rise is really just a short story about that individual; and that not all of these short stories are equally critical to Sadie’s development at the end of the novel. Additionally, these chapters do not all proceed in a straightforward timeline; they often provide a more detailed explanation of things that have been presented in previous or subsequent chapters.

The description of the lives of these characters along with their ways of speaking and their dialect are very evocative of life in Appalachia and give the story verisimilitude. The isolation and the poverty are brought to the forefront by contrasting the life of Kate Shaw in eastern North Carolina before she moves to Baines Creek. In Baines Creek she encounters the residents’ fear and distrust of outsiders, but she also finds friends and supporters, sometimes in unexpected places.

I found this to be a gripping and powerful tale that was hard to put down, a real page-turner. These are characters that will stay with you for a long time. Highly recommended.

I received this advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The author is a very good writer but not a great story teller. The book ended and I was wanting way more. I thought the book was going to be about Sadie Blue and her life and this book was told by I think at least 5 different people and not all of it about Sadie Blue. It was so weird but good. The ending was awful and felt very rushed. I am still scratching my head on this book. I would absolutely would try to read another book from this author just to see if her other books are better.

Another title for this book might have been “If I Was A Fly On The Wall.” There are small towns all over North Carolina and this book might as well have set up shop right in the middle of one. There were a number of times that I found myself re-reading and doubling back on chapters because not only was there just so much packed into the story but the writing style is so perfect for this sort of story. Author Leah Weiss has her work cut out to top her debut novel. If she can write another even on par with this book, I would call her a success. Not only does she tie your emotions to this town, she makes it difficult not to feel every pain and sorrow her characters relate. You feel for these people even while their lives continue on. Each chapter gives you a new point of view and what they reveal, it is almost like sitting in their homes listening to their dark secrets. Some of the story lines we all know, we’ve seen it coming but like a train wreck there is nothing we can do but just watch it happen. And yet, sometimes Weiss surprised me and even though it wasn’t what I expected it, it wasn’t out of character. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy reading about small towns and getting just a slice of that style of life.
*This ebook was provided by NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark in exchange for honest feedback*

In the hills of Applachia, there are towns that seem like they haven't aged and life is still primitive and this book explores one of those towns as a new teacher has come to town to teach the children and will maybe stir up things.

With only a few chapters and each chapter narrated by a different character and only a few chapters had repeats, it was an full view because you saw life through the pastor, a woman who was abused by her husband, her grandmother and her aunt and so on.

I lived in North Carolina in two parts for quite a few years and North Carolina has a special place in my heart because it is where I was first an adult and I am not naive to say that there are towns like this both in North Carolina and in many if not all other states in the United States, but this book just didn't work for me. It felt like a caricature of this lifestyle and just disingenuous. I was cringing a few times not because I didn't think it was true, it just didn't feel right. I feel like I am talking circles, but its hard to describe what I really didn't love about it, but I felt it through the whole book.

I would read another book by this author, only if it wasn't set in this area because it wasn't her writing her per say it was more her portrayal.

I expected to like this book more than I did. It started out well for me but I was left feeling dissatisfied and wishing there had been more to it. I appreciated reading the characters’ different perspectives of what was going on and understanding what had made them as they were - poverty, lack of opportunity, childhood neglect - everything I’d expect to learn about an isolated community in the Appalachian mountains, even as recently as 50 years ago. Apart from Sadie’s personal circumstances, though, little changes for them - the good remain good and the not-so-good don’t improve. The new teacher arriving in Baines Creek bringing a whiff of fresh, free thinking bodes well but her influence doesn’t extend far enough for my liking. I am thinking particularly of Prudence here - her character seems ripe for development, if not all-out redemption. I needed to know more - how do these people move into the 21st century without losing their sense of community? An enjoyable afternoon’s read, but fell a little flat for me.

4.5 stars

In this stunning debut by new novelist Leah Weiss readers are taken into the heart of a tiny backwoods town in Appalachia. At first glance the local characters are all half witted, backwards acting, inbred hillbillies. They're uncouth, they're filthy, they're uneducated, and they're just plain weird or mean. Yet upon further inspection readers will quickly realize each character truly does have his or her own confused and abnormal behavior, but also a deeper sense of personal struggle and a wiser head than initial appearances suggest.

If the Creek Don't Rise was a wonderful book which told a dark and gritty story. Several actually as it's really a combined tale told from each of the main character's perspectives. At the heart of all the stories is a young girl named Sadie Blue. Pregnant and married to a man who'd sooner beat his new bride than cherish her. Everybody sees what he does to her, but there is nothing anybody can do. Or is there?

It took me a while to get used to the unusual manner in which the characters spoke because it was less honed and not your every day, educated voice. There was a lot of uneducated sentence structuring and word choices used that were necessary to pull off the where and when this piece of writing was set. And eventually I did get used to the style and appreciated the book all the more for it.

This gripping story was not a fast paced read, though it was exceptionally engaging. I never tired of the characters or the storyline even when my reading progress seemed slim for the amount of time I'd been hunkered between the pages. I guess it's just one of those books that requires time to think and digest, to absorb all the idiosyncrasies and nuances of the lives being laid bare on the page before you. Oh, and the ending is perfection; I loved it!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for giving me this review opportunity.