Troubled Waters

I just finished reading this amazing tale and loved every minute of it.
I loved Corrinne and Cora.
Although I must say my heart went out more to Cora than Corrinne. I almost didn't like Corrinne at all.
I couldn't imagine how frightening that must've been. I admired Cora so much!
Poor Harold got caught in the middle. He was my favorite character. He's a lot like me a peace keeper in the family. A more terrifying job if there ever was one so I knew how he felt at times.
My favorite part was the ending of this book and it will break your heart into pieces.
A very powerful and emotional story that will rock your world after reading this novel. I will be looking for more by this wonderful lady who wrote this story with her heart.
5 stars for an incredible story that will leave me thinking about these characters long after this story has ended. Believe me they'll not let you put them down until it is over.
I highly recommend this book.
My thanks for a copy of this book. I was NOT required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own.

this tale spans decades exploring the history of two generations of black women in southern USA: grandmother cora, the sole black student in her elementary school, facing systemic racism as a literal 5-to-7-year-old in the 50s; and granddaughter corrine, raising awareness on climate change after losing her brother in an oil barge accident in 2013. we also get the occasional chapters from harold, cora's son and corrine's uncle.

personally i connected more with corrine, being of similar age and disposition, but i also felt for young cora and the older cora who learns to accept her past and acknowledge how the times have changed since. the past timeline felt a bit disconnected at first but it all ties up well as we get to know the relationships within the family. i thought the heaviness of the themes was balanced by the heartwarming love and care shown between the three.

this is an important work of fiction drawing inspiration from very real events. thank you to the author for writing this and kindly allowing me to read an advanced copy through netgalley.

**Features:**
-Explores themes around climate change, grief, racism, sense of history, family, and what it really means to be an activist
-An own voices piece
-Multigenerational, character driven novel told from multiple perspectives
-Set predominantly in New Orleans, Nashville, and Mississippi with occasional scenes at Oberlin College in Ohio

This is a captivatingly beautiful and heartfelt piece that will stay with you long past the final page. It weaves together the tale of a family grieving a recent loss with a much longer history of loss and struggle. Told by characters from three different generations, the past comes back to haunt the present in very different ways for each and influences how they try to move forward and support each other. Even when I didn’t really agree with a character’s choices or opinions, I could still understand where they were coming from and empathize with their perspective. This book is definitely more about the characters than plot, so this might not be the book for you if you prefer a clear path that the characters follow as the story unfolds. Otherwise, this is a wonderful and important read that I would highly recommend!

**Pro: We are family**

This story is told by three characters: Corinne, her grandmother Cora, and Corinne’s uncle Harold. It starts with all three of them getting together for their first Christmas since Cameron, Corrine’s brother, passed away while working on an oil barge. I immediately felt like I was being wrapped in a warm hug as I felt the love shining through every interaction these characters had with each other. However, what I loved even more was that a great deal of tension and misunderstanding is allowed to exist between each of them and highlights their deep connection even further. The characters are so masterfully realized and interplay so beautifully that it is clear even their disagreements are born from a place of love and misunderstanding. Truly, Helgar’s brilliant character work makes this story stand apart from others.

**The Breakdown: Those college days**

Though we get a number of flashbacks to earlier moments in each character’s life, the ‘present day’ storyline mostly follows Corrine and her environmental activism. Corrine’s view towards global warming feels quite extreme and is jarring in comparison to all of the other beautiful, subtle work that has gone into everything else in this story. However, I also think this is an accurate depiction of a passionate young college student. Corrine is smart and capable, but also naive and has a ‘bulldozer-like’ approach that dismisses the nuances of the situations she is trying to navigate. There were many times Corrine made me cringe and get irritated, but I can’t really knock what feels right for this character as a whole.

This story tends to skip chunks of time, and I think that narrowing in on Corrine’s experiences more would have helped me get her a little more. For example, she goes out to interview people who were affected by Deepwater Horizon (and Katrina, to a lesser extent), but we never get to see any of these interviews or how some of the earlier ones impacted Corrine more directly. Because we don’t get any of these moments and Corrine has trouble verbalizing the driving force behind her fear/passion, it took me a lot longer to understand Corrine than the other characters. We do get there eventually, and I was able to appreciate going on the journey with Corrine in the end.

I love when a book sits with me far after I’ve read it and in ways that no other book has.
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Troubled Waters started out with a plot and dialogue I felt would be perfect for YA genre. As I read deeper and started highlighting and underlining more, I changed my mind. This can be perfect for YA or adult fiction.
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I’m currently writing this portion of my review only at the halfway mark in the book. I am THIS moved halfway through. I also understand that not everyone will get the same feelings after reading this but I’m sharing my honest review and the feelings I’ve felt throughout reading.

There’s so much self discovery as well. I also appreciate the southern charm hospitality that you feel while reading. It’s there and very prevalent. Shoutout to the music mentioned in the first chapter!

Thank you to netgalley and Harper Muse for allowing me access to this book. I received this book as being apart of a tour for Hear Our Voices Book Tour company, this book was so good. I loved how the author touched on topics that a lot of people are scared to talk about or have no knowledge on. It was great to see a book that focused on family and how each generation live can contribute to the future.

Oh my this book had me emotional for so many reasons 😭! This was really good book . Just to know that some of family members had to endure some of the most terrible things known to mankind . It just breaks my heart. I feel like book highlights the difference in generations of blk people and how things may seem like they are better but also still the same just different situations. Prepare yourself to feel every emotion while reading this book ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Thank you, NetGalley. I loved this story so much. The way the author articulated the relationship between the granddaughter and grandmother was genius.

Trauma is, in general, a difficult thing to talk about with anyone, let alone someone you love and care about. This is something Corrine and Cora are learning in this... gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, and inspiring story told by two generations of women.

The story is told from three perspectives: Grandma Cora, Uncle Harold, and Corrine. I admit, Uncle Harold is my favorite. This story shows that people deal with grief and trauma in their own way, and I think Uncle Harold said it best: "You can't control how someone else hurts. Can't predict it either. And there's always only one type of pain ... and it's always yours." Cora knows a kind of pain that people can only sympathize with because not everyone had to deal with the trauma of integrating an all-white school in Nashville, TN, in the 1950s.

There's trauma that older Black folks don't like to talk about. I always thought it was frustrating because how am I supposed to know and understand what our people went through if no one talks about it. However, I get it. Some things you just want to keep bottled up, and you do what you have to do, cope however you can so that no one else who looks like you will have to deal with that. You exhibit that through Cora, and it's one of the most heartbreaking scenes. I know this is fiction, but it's like: I know it's one thing to read about it but to live it is quite another. Reading about six or seven-year-old Cora as a student is heartbreaking because you know this has happened to someone. One of my favorite parts is one of the most gut-wrenching scenes, and that is the ending. Watching Cora explain to Harold and Corrine what she went through and why she doesn't like talking about it will tear you in tears. (Hot tip: Do not listen to Naya Rivera sing "If I Die Young" while reading this book. While it fits, it will destroy you.)

It's important to know that people deal with things in their own way, and we must give them grace. We'll never know the true extent of what they went through when they went through it. While it is all the adjectives I used earlier, and it's heavy, it's worth it.

I’ve been super excited to read this book since I heard about it as I’m a big fan of the authors work! The book did not disappoint and I really enjoyed the story and learning about the area that the book was set in. I would recommend this book whether you’re a previous fan of the author or not!

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Muse for the opportunity to read Troubled Waters by Mary Annaise Heglar.
An emotional read. Respectfully and beautifully written, and will stay with you for a !o g time.

This was a powerful story told from the eyes of Corrine, Harold and Cora. Corrine is a college student. She dedicates her time to climate change and the world today while she is dealing with the grief on losing her brother. Cora has dealt a lot of trauma growing up and dried through the years. The death of her grandson is one she struggles to get over because it just reminds her of the several losses she has suffered throughout her life. Harold is Cora’s son and Corrine uncle. He always seemed to find himself in the middle of Cora and Corrine. He is like their sense of reasoning to help them understand each other and keep their bond in tact.

I love everything about this story. The rawness, the family dynamics, the open and honest discussions about what has happened and what is happening. There were some emotions that touched me for sure.

Here are a few quotes that resonated with me.

🟠"Whatever it is, honey, you just do your best and we'll be right proud, you hear?" Mama told her. "We'll be right there with you."

🟡A hollowness began to radiate inside her, threatening to pull her under like a whirlpool. It was the same emptiness she'd tried so hard to fill for so many years, too familiar to mistake. Loneliness.

🟣Instead, she set herself about the business of raising her children, and then her grandchildren, to be better than her.

🟠Life is not a short story.

🟡With a raw throat and tears still streaming, I started writing what would become Troubled Waters that night.

🟣All writing is an act of self-discovery, but this was an act of self-excavation, self-evolution.