Slow River

Nicola Griffith
Slow River Cover

Slow River

Somnium
1/28/2014
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The beginning of the books starts out a bit slow and the fact that the story is told in three parts (Lore's childhood, recent past, and present) makes it a little awkward to get into. The only signaling of the change of time is a shift in the POV, which took a couple changes to get used to. I liked how the three parts wove together though, so it was definitely worth the minor adjustment. The three timelines all come together just as Lore is finally figuring everything out.

The main character, Lore, comes from a rich family who run a water management company. After being kidnapped and realizing that her family is kind of messed up, Lore decides to leave behind her previous life and start anew in a life of crime and deceit. The rest of the book is pretty much Lore trying to figure out who she is and where she belongs. Also how messed up her family actually was. There's a lot of waste management technobabble at points. Which is kind of nice that it's been thought through and explained, but kind of boring in parts. The explanations can pretty much be skimmed without missing anything if one wishes. In the end though, this book manages to make working in a waste management plant interesting, which is a big accomplishment. I'd kind of liked to see a bit more of how things played out at the end, especially with Greta as she seems like someone who would still have some tricks up her sleeve, but overall I thought the whole end of the plot was great and worth the kind of slow start.