Rating: 
Summary: Interesting vignettes but somewhat disjoint as a novel
Review: River, Cross My Heart is the story of a black family in Georgetown, DC in the 1920s. Early in the book, the youngest daughter Clara drowns when she follows her older sister Johnny Mae and friends to the river, where they're forbidden to go. The book is billed as the story of how the family deals with this tragedy. Although that theme plays a role, the book is just as much the story of Johnny Mae growing up, and the life of her mother, Alice Bynum, and her friends and relatives in the neighborhood. Although there were some interesting themes and characters in the book, I found that the story was fairly disjoint. One of the more compelling themes is Johnny Mae's obsession with the white people's pool and her indignation that she's not allowed to swim in it. Another little vignette is about Alice's job as a housekeeper for a white family and her relationship with the woman she works for. We also learn about Johnny Mae's odd friendship with a painfully shy new student, Pearl, and how Pearl gradually develops confidence. We learn of Pearl's mother's expectations about being welcomed by and invited to the church. We get a very brief glimpse of the life of Johnny Mae's father and an even vaguer view of the men of the neighborhood. We meet the neighborhood "medicine woman" who cures people with mysterious concoctions. There is some evolution to the family's acceptance of Clara's death, but again, that theme wove through the story only in the background, and it never seemed to be fully resolved. Although some of these vignettes and personalities kept my interest, in the end, I don't believe they hung together well as a novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best book to read.
Review: The book starts out slow, and it weaves its way through the past and present, which gets a little annoying. While it does have some feeling to it, and it does give a good insight to what life for african americans was like back then, I was for the most part dreadfully bored with the book. Not something I'd really recommend to people to read.
Rating: 
Summary: A READING IMBUED WITH UNDERSTANDING
Review: This was Oprah's pick and it'll be yours too. Debut novelist Clarke presents an affecting story of a young girl's death by drowning and the impact this has on those still living in a 1925 Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Ten-year-old Johnnie Mae Bynum feels the loss deeply as she was instructed to care for her younger sister. Guilt and confusion reign within her. Thus, we have a remarkable coming of age tale, we experience the family tensions that are the aftermath of such a tragedy, and witness racist feelings in a small community. The author imbues the reading of her work with richness and understanding
Rating: 
Summary: Beatifully written, but absolutely no plot
Review: This book was beatifully written. Breena Clark beatifully describes the lives of the Bynums, an African American family living in Georgetown during the 1920s. The main problem with this book is that it has no plot. The first quarter of the book is filled with striking events and interesting bits of characterization: Johnnie Mae Bynum's younger sister drowns in the Potomac, Johnnie Mae is experiencing growing pains as she approaches adolescence, the family is facing numerous trials and tribulations, and we meet several different potentially interesting characters. But where does all of this lead? No where, really. As these people keep going about their day-to-day business, the reader keeps waiting for a plot to surface, but it never does. Another problem with this book is that the characters remain more or less undeveloped. We learn about their daily lives and we can imagine what they're feeling in certain situations, but the author never really gives us a direct look inside their hearts and minds. Breena Clark is clearly a talented writer, but it seems she was too bogged down in expounding on the superficial aspects of her characters' lives to give them depth or to create an engaging storyline. On the bright side, this book did leave me with some fascinating images of Black life in 1920s Georgetown.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable read
Review: The term "coming-of-age story" is probably highly over-used in Amazon reviews. However, that's truly the best way to describe this lovely story by Breena Clarke. Johnnie Mae has a fascination with water. It is near the water that her baby sister, Clara, dies; it is her fascination with the water that almost gets her arrested when she breaks into the white-only swimming pool; and it is her ability in the water that begins to break her out of the segregated world of 1925 Washington, DC. This book chronicles a year in Johnnie Mae's life when all of these events happen to her. Through these snapshots of her life, the reader is able to catch a glimpse of how segregated big-city life must have looked to a child. Overall, the book is very enjoyable, and will be a quick read - perhaps for a summer day at the beach?
Rating:
Summary: Ok book, nothing more
Review: This book wasn't exciting. Not at all. I had to read it for my school and would've abandoned it a while ago if I didn't have to read it. The ending kind of saved the book, since the last 50 pages were actually interesting and fun to read. That is no excuse however, for the first boring 200 pages. I think the problem here is that Clarke tried to go for too many messages in one book. I'm not a great writer, but when I write, I tend to pick out one message to go through in my whole book. Clarke tried to go for too much and the result was 200 pages of nothingness. I must say, once in a while, when there is a plot twist, it gets interesting for a little while. But then it gets boring again. Talk about Clara's death seems to go on forever. I think it ends at about 60 pages after she drowns which is awful. I understand it's a great sadness, but I don't need 60 pages to do it. The way Alice acts at the trainstation also seems out of line. She was just not expected to do it. It's another message that shouldn't be there. And finally, Johnie Mae's tresspass on the white pool seems out of line also. It's an attempt of Clarke to throw in the little segregation motive which should've been left out. CONCLUSION: Don't read this unless you have to. You're not missing anything. There are far better books that this one out there.
Rating:
Summary: Rich with great character develoment
Review: If you want excitement and non-stop action, go read "Die Another Day". But if you enjoy great characters that seem so real they leap out of the page, try Breena Clarke's new novel, a great attempt at a new novel. It's slow, but gives us white folks an interesting glimpse into black culture during 1925 in a supposedly liberated city (Washington DC). The underlying tragedy of a little child's drowning pervades the book like ripples in a pool. Try it!
Rating:
Summary: Average book
Review: This was an okay book to read. The characters were average and not magnificent. This review reads like the book: struggling to get interesting.
Rating:
Summary: A beautifully written story,
Review: As I cross another Oprah book Club book off my list, I am now realizing why I did not read this book so quickly. It was a beautifully written story, but it lacked at times something. Johnnie Mae and her younger sister Clara are growing up Georgetown in the 1920's. At the time, the young girls cannot do many things. So they spend time hanging out at the river. When tragedy strikes the family, they must pull together to be a family again. They rely on there strong family bonds and go from there. Johnnie Mae struggles with Clara's death. She hides herself to people and does not show her true emotion. Until a young girl comes along that reminds Johnnie Mae of her sister Clara. She swears the young girl Pearl is the ghost of Clara who is there to watch over Johnnie Mae. As time goes on Johnnie Mae helps Pearl talk more and become more social. The two girl's friendship was beautiful. How Johnnie Mae found such a good friend in the times after Clara's death. I also loved how they showed the mother and her struggles with losing a child and keeping herself calm and under control. Overall, this was a good book, not one of my favorite books, but still something, I enjoyed reading.
Rating:
Summary: pretty good
Review: I usually avoid any book that was an Oprah pick but River Cross My Heart was really pretty good. This coming of age story will touch you. Johnnie Mae's baby sister was drowned in the Potomac. Johnnie Mae and her family live in segregated Georgetown. Racism is alive and dangerous. Johnnie is afraid that her parents blame her for Clara's death. Each of these situations is enough to make a book but Breena Clarke manages to blend the deep hardships facing her young heroine and brings it all to a satisfying conclusion. It will be interesting to see what kind of book Ms. Clarke writes next. Kimberley Lindsay Wilson, author of Eleven Things Mama Should Have Told You About Men
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