Once Upon a River

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Campbell, Bonnie Jo, Adult Book / Fiction / General / Campbell, Bonnie Jo
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Campbell, Bonnie Jo	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Campbell, Bonnie Jo	4-week checkout	Reshelving
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Campbell, Bonnie Jo	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Campbell, Bonnie Jo	4-week checkout	Due 05-21-2024

Margo Crane, a beautiful and uncanny markswoman, takes to the Stark River after being complicit in the death of her father and embarks on an odyssey in search of her vanished mother.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

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Summary / Annotation
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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

really good book submitted by shailu on August 1, 2011, 3:45pm neha is amazing im joking this book is amazing

Finally, a real female character submitted by crazypockets on January 27, 2012, 5:44pm If you check this book out because it takes place in Michigan, you may be disappointed. Even if you are very familiar with the Kalamazoo area (which I'm not), the author stipulates that she changes a lot of the geography of the area for the sake of the story. But if you want a well-written, human story, this is a great book. I loved the descriptions and the straight-forward narration. One of the reviews on the back says this is the female character for whom literature has been waiting, and I couldn't agree more. I'm glad authors are starting to write women or teenage girls as strong, independent, thinking beings. My favorite passage in the book is, "Margo kept his words on the surface. She wasn't a wolf girl or a murderer or an heiress. Or a dream. She was a girl who needed some matches and gas for the outboard motor." Throughout the story, she is confronted with men (and women) who have a particular vision of who she is (nymph, whore, water goddess, savior, child), but in the end, she's just a human girl trying to survive in the wild. The author allows no labels to be placed on her character. Some readers might find passages about hunting, trapping and skinning animals hard to read (as I did), but at its heart, this is a survival story, and a beautifully-written one.

an important book submitted by Steve Amick on June 21, 2012, 2:42pm More a Michigan Grapes of Wrath than Huck Finn--a thing we need right now. The fact that no Pulitzer was awarded for the novel the year THIS came out is just plain dopey.

Rural Noir submitted by sdunav on June 16, 2014, 2:06pm A prequel to Campbell's novel, Q Road (which I absolutely loved) - I didn't like this one as much, partially because I knew what was going to happen in the next book, but it was still very good if you like rural noir. Which is now a thing, according to some article I read. I'm not sure how it's different from midwestern Gothic - but it's good.

Perfect Protaganist submitted by Beth Manuel on July 13, 2015, 12:59pm This book offered a story of a realistically dysfunctional familial situation, reminiscent of Winter's Bone. The descriptions of the river and the characters Margo encountered were so easy to imagine. Good story. If you're looking for a story that takes place in Michigan, this one doesn't disappoint.

Good prose and characters submitted by ajh on August 12, 2023, 11:12am I found this beautifully written and the story was moving and deep, much like some.... rivers