Rating: 
Summary: Forced Into Action
Review: River Woman is a haunting account at one woman's pain of lost love and an entire town's pain of justice denied. Kelithe is a nineteen year old woman whose son, Timothy, drowns in the Rio Minho River as his mother washed laundry. The other women at the river say that Kelithe stood by and let her son drown so that she could go "foreign" with her mother; a mother that left her in Standfast, Jamaica fifteen years prior. Enter Sonya, Kelithe's mother, who arrives back in Standfast for the wake. Kelithe denies her role in her son's drowning, while Sonya contemplates her daughter's role by shifting back and forth between blaming and not blaming her and listening to the natives' account of the drowning. The uniqueness of this story comes in the form of Kelithe and Sonya's contemplation through the reader only. Never do they deny or blame each other verbally for the drowning, the love denied, the false promises or the betrayal. The river and river women are symbolic as they represent all that Standfast has endured since Sonya was a young girl in Standfast and before. This incident forces the town into action and produces emotions that the island of Jamaica has never seen by the residents of Standfast. Written in a very lyrical tone, River Woman is a novel that will have you contemplating the ramifications of Sonya's actions fifteen years prior and her actions in the present. This is a sad account that leaves you wondering what exactly happened at the river that day and why.
Reviewed by Dawn R. Reeves, Apooo BookClub
Rating:
Summary: Tragic Tale of Human Nature
Review: This book has an unexplainable quality that gives it the aura of a dream. Even though the story is sad from beginning to end, I found myself not being able to put the book down. As you read, the story clarifies itself in a way that makes you realize that the book is not only about the death of a child, but about how people use the tragedy of others to serve their own purposes. This is a very thought provoking work that will leave you stunned as Hamans refuses to give us the "just" ending we wish for throughout.
Rating:
Summary: Tragic Tale of Human Nature
Review: This book has an unexplainable quality that gives it the aura of a dream. Even though the story is sad from beginning to end, I found myself not being able to put the book down. As you read, the story clarifies itself in a way that makes you realize that the book is not only about the death of a child, but about how people use the tragedy of others to serve their own purposes. This is a very thought provoking work that will leave you stunned as Hamans refuses to give us the "just" ending we wish for throughout.
Rating:
Summary: Great Style
Review: This novel shows impecable style and gorgeous prose. A pleasure to read. I loved the character development especially of Sonya, who though as a person I didn't really like, loved the way she came to life.
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