(Spoilers) Who has read Wally Lamb's The River is Waiting?

Recent Reads
1

I’d like to discuss it - particularly the ending. Who here has read it?

2

the ending was like the opening - a big slap in the face.

3

The book broke my heart. I read it about a year ago and literally sobbed my way through the last half. One stupid, tragic action followed by so much pain and heartache and injustice. Wally Lamb is a favorite author of mine. He is definitely not a happy romance writer but instead explores addiction and so many other challenges of life. I think the ending upset some people because it wasn’t upbeat and about tragedies overcome but was showing the pain and injustices in many people’s lives. Lamb has spent a lot of time with women prisoners and teaches writing. He sees a side of life most of us never see and his stories reflect this. I hated and loved this book for how I felt as I read then the ability of Lamb to make me feel so much from 1 book. To me, reading is about expanding my life from myself to the experiences of others- this book succeeded.

4

I read it after seeing Wally Lamb and it was my first book by him. I found it to be very disturbing and didn’t see the end coming so it was devastating.

5

I’m glad you felt so strongly about the book. It’s not so much the fact that the ending wasn’t upbeat that bothered me, though, it was its suddenness. One minute Corby has reached his very lowest point - perhaps the first time he’s truly reckoning with the consequences of his addiction - and the next, he’s dead! I was pleased that finally - FINALLY - he was accepting reality, and I wanted to see that play out. I felt as if the author reached the point where he just didn’t know where to take Corby’s story - or felt that if he started down a specific path, it would require a lot more storytelling - so it was, “OK, good enough, pull the plug.” I still think it was a good book - heartbreaking, realistic - just didn’t like the end. But that’s what makes reading such a wonderful activity. We all bring our own perspectives to books.

6

I loved this book! The ending was devastating but I felt it was realistic. We are not always given the luxury of enough time to wrap things up the way we might prefer. The whole book was a lot of reality that is easy to deny or forget. But when we allow ourselves to “go in”, we are better off for it - more empathetic, more determined to live better lives, more aware that injustice happens every day, everywhere.