Long Bright River: A Novel Hardcover – January 7, 2020

I can see I’m an outlier here, but I really didn’t enjoy this book. Admittedly, the subject matter is grim (broken families, working class neighborhoods, kids dropping out of school, poverty, drugs, sex workers, murder), but lord, this is BLEAK.Perhaps it would have been easier to take if Mickey had been a more likeable protagonist, but she’s not. She’s 33 and still hasn’t stopped resenting things that happened when she was a kid. She’s humorless. She's self-righteous. She has thirteen years on the police force, but claims she can’t afford a decent apartment or reliable childcare and spends a crazy % of the book arranging that care, mostly asking for it free or for sub-minimum wage from other women. She seems to spend almost nothing on clothes (but resents women who do); she barely drinks, doesn’t smoke – where is her money going? Why hasn't she, after almost five years, realized that she needs reliable childcare? And why hasn't she realized that she needs to transfer to a job that has childcare-friendly schedules? They do exist; look at how she met the baby-daddy. He transferred to the Police Athletic League when he had a son, precisely to avoid the tyranny of schedules that rotate between 8a-4p, 4p-midnight, or midnight-8a. It must be impossible to arrange childcare around such a schedule, but Mickey acts as though she has no choice when she indeed has one.Google tells me that cops with her seniority in PA make a lot more than school teachers, (as in, they make $60-$80k/yr: nowhere near poverty. The author describes it as poverty; it is not) yet she aspires to be a teacher because (as far as I can tell) she thinks it’s a classier occupation. I mean, yes, her childhood was terrible, but people have overcome worse without a massive chip on the shoulder and lingering class resentment.The other characters are very thinly-drawn. Is it my imagination or are all the men a bit slow-witted?I've edited this review since I first wrote it. I read the book again. Nothing changes my initial impression, but the last 5% of the book redeems it a bit. I don't want to read 95% for the last 5%.If I were Amy Pascal, I’d hire rewrite on the Mickey character.

too incredible to pass this one up. “Long Bright River” is a novel only in that that characters and setting are fictional. The content of this book is VERY real. Two sisters from a broken, dysfunctional home, grow up depending on each other and forging a bond that will stand immense testing.This book is literary, it’s family drama, mystery, thriller, suspense and it’s almost 500 pages that will rush by gut wrenching flips. The characters are real, the setting is familiar and the story is far too common. Editing on this book is extraordinary and the short bursts of story add to its emotion and drive rather than aggravate. Switching from past to present is marked so clearly it will seem abrupt, at first, and then it will be perfect.Liz Moore has begun 2020 with an explosive yet hopeful offering that’s sure to have readers talking for a long time📚

When I first got this book I thought it was going to be about a murder and a bit of family drama here and there... Well, to be honest the book starts pretty nicely and it goes with the murder and how this police officer deals with things that are going on at home and at work, but suddenly you are reading over 200 pages of extensive, unnecessary, and boring character/background development. Once you get to 75% or so of the book it finally goes back into the "juicy" portion of the story and poof, the book ends.The writing style of this book is extremely frustrating! If you take all of the "I say", "She says", "He says" from the book you probably already have 30% of the pages, no kidding, check my picture! lol Please use quotations!!!The main character is so bland and boring, and honestly it is hard to see a career long police officer being unable to even talk to someone on the phone and so oblivious of what may happen around her. I did enjoy the family portion of the story and the reality of low income areas with the drug epidemic.

Difficult to follow because of the purposeful lack of proper punctuation. Too many explicit descriptions of streets and locations in Philadelphia that were unnecessary and unrelated to story. This was one of the worst books I've read in recent memory and am being generous with 2 stars. Don't waste your time or money. Obviously, I don't recommend this book.

I am already predicting Long Bright River to be in my top 5 of favorite books for 2020!Long Bright River is brutally honest about the grittiness around dysfunctional families, the opioid epidemic, and sex work. Liz Moore's writing is intense and so real. I had a two day book hangover after finishing this book and I cannot wait for the movie being produced by Amy Pascal and Neal H. Moritz!Told in alternating timelines - Sisters, Mickey and Kacey, grew up inseparable after losing both parents to the opioid epidemic in the heart of Philadelphia. Mickey and Kacey were taken in by their Grandmother who was very open about the fact that she resented the fact that she was raising her granddaughters. When the girl were in their early teens, they started attending an after school program that was staffed by local police officers. Mickey found herself being mentored by a young male officer, while Kacey started hanging around other troubled teens.Fast forward to their early 30s - Mickey is a single mom and beat cop, while Kacey is a sex worker and addicted to drugs. Mickey's beat covers Kacey's working area, so she keeps an eye on her even though they haven't spoken in 5 years. When sex workers start ending up dead, Kacey goes missing, and Mickey's captain doesn't seem too worried about the dead sex workers, Mickey becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her sister.

I couldn’t put it down. So many EARNED twists and turns you don’t see coming. Fully realized characters and scenes. I feel so lucky that I spotted the review in the Washington Post that made me buy and put it at the top of my list to read. Which is exactly what you should do, now. Right now.

Hawkins' quote on the cover of this outstanding novel says exactly what I thought when I closed the book. This is an absolutely stunning psychological crime thriller. The narrative is sharp, the characterisation authentic, the themes of addiction, poverty, and the way our familial history shapes us excellently written and believable, and the plot itself so realistic I kept forgetting I was reading fiction. It reads more like a literary thriller. I'm quite a visual reader anyway but I can really see Moore's work being adapted into a movie. This has shot straight up to my top reads of the year (2020) and it's going to take a very special book to reach anywhere near the same level.Stunning, visceral, and absorbing. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a procedural element to their psychological fiction.

Superb, loved this so much, couldn’t put it down, riveting, brilliantly written, compelling crime story, heartbreaking, hopeful, sad, very real, twisty, intelligent, such pain and loss and yet kindness, with so much in there about families, society, love, betrayal. Three books in a row from Liz Moore that I’ve thought were brilliant reads. Another that will be in my books of the year.

Why has this book received so many plaudits? This has to be one of the biggest slogs ever, and for big reasons. Firstly, and in all seriousness, the editor who decided this was ok should be slapped with a wet fish, but why on earth has it been written without speech marks? You know? Those things that denote someone is...well... speaking? It's an absolute nightmare of having to re-read sentences time and time again to make sense of them. There is a dash before someone speaks but nothing to denote when they stop or when they start again in the same bit of dialogue. So, for example: - Is that Mickey? asks my aunt Lynn. Ashley's mother. Is that you, Mickey?Or- No, says Mrs. Mahon. She frowns. I didn't know him. I didn't tell him anything.It's a total nightmare.Also, there's not really much of a story. Mickey is a police officer and has a sister, a drug addict, who has gone missing. I didn't like Mickey much. I know a lot of authors say it's not important that we like their heroes/heroines, but if we don't like them we don't really care about them, do we? This is just 400 pages of angst, of Mickey trying to do her job, bring up her young son and search for her sister singlehandedly. I got about half way through before I decided that I couldn't care less and found reading it so, so difficult with the awful punctuation that I was almost wishing to be back in that classroom trying to decipher Chaucer!Don't waste your money.

Well, what an impactful read! This story was one that really got beneath my skin. I thought the author did a splendid job of fleshing out the main character of Micky, a female patrol officer, who walks the sometimes mean streets of Philadelphia. Micky has not had an easy life. When Mickey was only a young girl, her mother died of a drug overdose, and her estranged father became a distant memory. Mickey has a younger sister, Kacey, who has unfortunately made poor choices in life, she now works as a prostitute to feed her drug addiction. When Kacey goes missing, the local police don't invest much in the way of resources and time to investigate. So, Mickey uses her street contacts etc, in an effort to find out what's happened to her sister.The novel is written in the first person - from the viewpoint of Mickey. This gives the author the opportunity to give an excellent portrayal of Mickey, and explore the complexities of her family life. At times, it's heartbreaking to read of the wrong decisions made, the wrong things said, and the misunderstandings which lead to Mickey and Kacey heading in contrasting life-changing directions.Although I never got confused as to who was saying what, I didn't like the absence of quotation marks, that was my main reason for removing a star. I also thought the narrative was over-cooked at times. That said, this is still a strong, solid story that has been executed with skill, and provides a realistic depiction of the trials and tribulations experienced by a working-class family. In addition, we have the inclusion of drug-related issues, and an on-going mystery. This novel is definitely worth reading, and has certainly whetted my appetite for more Liz Moore books.

Our Book Club the Gloucestershire Lit Lovers and Yummy Scrummy Pudding Club picked this for our April 2020 read.Although it initially appeared to be a standard police crime drama, this was actually a story about family, loss, dependency and the hardship of living in a deprived area of Philadelphia. Mickey (Michaela) doesn’t really fit in with her family or in the police force. Long Bright River is her story, but there are a number of complex characters that were well written and believable. It was a gritty and traumatic read and it gave us a lot to think about.Little did we know that we would have glorious spring sunshine and warmth and that we would all be in lock down and reading in our gardens. We agreed this wasn't the book for such weather, but that wasn't the fault of the author, who did a really good job.