In the River Darkness

November 15, 2013
Readers will likely have difficulty connecting with this clunky translation of German author Roder's story about a young city girl who moves to the country with her family and quickly finds herself wrapped up in an otherworldly mystery when she befriends the two boys next door. Told from the three alternating perspectives of Mia, Alex and Jay, the novel follows the teens as their friendships grow and secrets from their pasts are revealed. The heart of the story centers around Alex and Jay's mother, who mysteriously disappeared when the boys were young, leaving them to be raised by a strict Catholic grandmother. While Alex clings to the pictures that come once a year on his birthday, Jay seeks comfort in Alina, who lives by the river and fiercely demands his complete and undivided loyalty. When Mia threatens to become a distraction, Alina will stop at nothing to keep Jay all to herself. Unfortunately, Roder's efforts to create a real sense of mystery or credible, likable characters are thwarted by clunky dialogue and a narrative that feels both forced and foreign. This is not a translation that helps readers lose themselves in the story, as it never feels authentic. This novel is, well...lost in translation. (Fiction. 13 & up)

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January 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-As much as Mia wants to run from her past, leaving her friends behind and moving to a tiny river town is not her idea of a solution. From the moment she steps out of her parents' car and onto their new property, she resolves to hate everything about it. Maybe if she had stuck to that resolve, she wouldn't have found herself caught between the two boys next door. Alexander, the handsome older brother, who pursues her relentlessly, is almost enough to make her forget about her last boyfriend, and Jay, the mysterious younger sibling, is able to connect with her in a way that few others have. This is not your typical teen romance. The elements of a love triangle are there, but a haunting subplot takes command of the story early on, making the relationships among the three narrators pale in comparison to the well-paced suspense. Readers will be asking themselves what's in the river long after they are done wondering who's in love with whom. Fans of both realistic fiction and paranormal romance are likely to find the story to be a fantastic blend of the two genres. The writing is beautiful, the cover is eye-catching, and the story within does not disappoint.-Jennifer Furuyama, Pendleton Public Library, OR

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 Mia is a big-city girl who finds herself in a country town when her family relocates for her father's job. She has brought a secret with her, one she tries to conceal beneath black clothes and goth makeup. She becomes interested in the activity of brothers Alex and Jay Stonebrook, who live next door with their father and grandmother and are at the center of a mystery themselves. This story starts as a fish-out-of-water tale and eventually becomes something else entirely, as each of the three main characters advance the narrative from alternating chapters. The original novel (Im Fluss, 2007) was an award winner in the author's native Germany, and it has been translated by 2013 Batchelder Award winner Reichel. Despite this pedigree, the story is unevenly paced. The ingredients for a tense and thoughtful piece of magic realism are in place throughout, and the characters ring true. Readers will genuinely be surprised by the reveal at the end, but they will have to be patient to get there.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2014
Mia reluctantly moves from the city to the country and rapidly finds herself drawn to two brothers who live nearby; the three teens encounter unsettling phenomena from the river that runs through their town. The awkward translation from the original German, particularly the dialogue, takes readers out of the story and distracts from the genuine suspense.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)