Customer Reviews

Two Rivers

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Two Rivers, by Greenwood, is a well intentioned novel that gets it right in many ways. The characters are well developed and the sense of 60's nostalgia is often right on.The theme of guilt and forgiveness is depicted through Harper's story told in present and flashback mode.Harper must pick up his life and raise his daughter after losing the love of his life in childbirth. He must wrestle with guilt over a life changing incident involving a racial murder. Into this mix comes Maggie, a pregnant teenager, who appears in Harper's life after a train wreck in Two Rivers.All of these elements come into play in Harper's journey of life. At times it is just too much..........too many components intertwining.........too many extremes.......60's housewives forced into insanity by the doldrums of being homemakers..........the tragedy of civil rights involvement.........the interminable angst of first unrequited love......the horrors of Vietnam involvement and the Pacifist movement...........all of these themes are played out in the extreme in Greenwood's novel. Even though I found these extremes to be negatives at times, they do provide lots of material for a good book discussion.

This is one of a very few books that, when I was finished reading, I immediately wanted to talk with someone else who had also read it. I have yet to find anyone who has read it, but that will soon change, because I am sharing it with everyone I know who likes an intelligent, thoughtful book. The twist at the end surprised me, but looking back I realized how masterfully she crafted the book and wondered why I didn't pick up on the clues. Reading the questions at the end also made me realize some other aspects of the book I hadn't thought of on my own. I can't wait for one of my friends to finish this so we can have a discussion over a cup of coffee! I plan on reading any other books by the same author.

In a small town, a blip on the map really, lies Two Rivers, Vermont. So small that everyone seems to know everyone and secrets are hard to keep.

Twelve-years have gone by since the death of Harper Montgomery's wife, Betsy. Leaving behind their only daughter, Shelly, for Harper to raise on his own. Harper still grieves the loss of his wife. He lives his life taking care of his daughter to the best of his abilities and working at the local railroad. The guilt he feels for something he did years ago eats away at him.

So when a train derails one fateful day, leaving many dead, he finds among the wreckage and destruction, a colored, pregnant fifteen year-old girl all alone. With her mother dead and no where else to go, she asks Harper if she can stay with him. Harper feels that this may be his chance for atonement. What he does not realize is that her being in Two Rivers was not by chance.

TWO RIVERS by T. Greenwood was a fascinating story. Greenwood told the story in great detail making the reader truly understand the story better. I thought the story was well-written and it kept my attention throughout the novel. This was a very good read.

Reviewed by Leona R.

APOOO BookClub

I'm not entirely sure what it was about this book that made me bring it home from the library...it's just not the kind of description that would typically draw me in. But wow. Wow.

Two Rivers has quickly become a new favorite. The story is broken into chapters that alternate between telling the story of Harper growing up in love with his neighbor Betsy from an early age, one night that changed everything, and his current life, up to the point where they all come together.

I'm always a sucker for a good twist, and this novel doesn't disappoint. Nothing is quite what you first imagined and each thing you assume to be fact is shattered in the end. There are no lies, just simple truths that lead your mind to believe things which are, in fact, false.

A quick and easy read with beautiful imagery and lyrical writing.

Harper Montgomery works at the railroad station and lives conservatively with his daughter, Shelly. He's still grieving his wife's death, twelve years ago and is raising his daughter by himself, doing the best that he can.

One day, he's informed of a train derailment in Two Rivers, Vermont. There are people still trapped in the train. Harper runs to the train and goes into the river, then climbs into one of the train cars but isn't able to help anyone. Back on the shore, he sees a young girl with "...skin the color of blackberries." Her clothes are wet from the river and she needs a place to stay.

Harper remembers an event connected to his wife's death and permits her to move into his small home with his daughter. Later, it turns out that the girl is expecting a child and came to Two Rivers looking for her brother. Harper fears what this might mean.

This plot driven novel dwells on Harper's turmoil throughout the book. He's guilty of an incident that happened long ago and his melancholy mood becomes depressing to read. It feels as if he should get counseling and move on with his life.

The setting in rural Vermont is well described and picturesque.

However, the gloomy mood of the novel took prevented a more enjoyable read.

I wish to provide just this simple, short review for this book. I don't often submit reviews, but thoroughly enjoyed this novel and felt compelled to at least submit a short review and provide an honest rating. I was fortunate to get this e-book for free and finally got around to reading it. The novel is well written and is hardly predictable. It's simply a love story as well as a story of atonement. T. Greenwood's storytelling technique keeps the story from becoming stale and each chapter jumps back in forth in time eventually providing the full realization of the main character's past as well as what he is compelled to do for the future. I really enjoyed this story and would recommend it to my friends and family.

when I got my Kindle, I was pleased to find out that free books were offered for it .... then I got a look at the free books. I'm not really interested in evangelical Christian novels, romance, conspiracy-theory ranting, sexy vampires, or thriller series, so there was little that tempted me there.

Two Rivers is an exception (it was only free for about four hours, sadly). I downloaded it on the strength of the reviews already on the site and really enjoyed it. It's an atmospheric little novel that jumps from the '60s to the '80s in alternate chapters -- we know at the outset that our affable, lowkey single-father narrator was involved in a horrific murder in 1968, and the earlier plotline leads up to that pivotal event, while in the latter narrative his constricted life is upended by a pregnant black teenager who serenely inserts herself into his household after a train crash.

Two Rivers covers a lot of ground -- the Civil Rights movement, desperate housewives, obsessive love, redemption and renewal -- and it does it very nicely. Around the halfway mark I thought that some of the minor characters, notably the narrator's parents, were a little thin, but they gain enormously from what we learn later in the book. In the end, only his daughter felt a little generic to me -- perhaps because the narrator is so afraid of failing as her father that he isn't capable of seeing her very clearly himself.

I enjoyed seeing how the "two rivers" of the plot converged and would definitely pick up another by Greenwood. One note on the Kindle edition -- I don't know if this is true for the print edition as well, but it's terribly copy-edited. Many typos, like "tick" instead of "tic," "sheers" instead of "shears." This is no refection on the novel itself, but it is distracting!

Truly a lovely read. Such heartwarming, complex, characters...Love this authors way of putting words together. I could actually feel how much Harper loved Betsy! Thanks for writing this!

Ms. Greenwood succeeds again in creating a story that underlines the tenuous hold we humans have on the things that are most important to us. A classic story of redemption, Harper Montgomery is jolted out of a grief-stricken, guilt-ridden haze by a tragic event that sends his life into a promising new direction.

This was the first book I've read by T. Greenwood and I'll be looking to read her other two books now. This book is easy to read and read rather quickly for me. It starts right out with the train crash that occurred in Two Rivers, VT and I found myself interested in the book within the first 50 pages. (A must for me!)

The chapters flash back and forth between present day with the aftermath from the train crash with the pregnant 16 year old girl and to the past from when the main character was a boy, his adolescence and up to 12 years ago when a man was killed. As a reader, I don't always like it when authors do this as I am usually more interested in one story line than the other, but T. Greenwood did a good job of capturing my interest and I found myself looking forward to learning more about both story lines.

All in all, I would recommend reading this book! I won't give anything away. Good plot twists, interesting character development and some thinking about choices we make along our lives...