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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
In Anne M Smith-Nochasak’s River Becomes Shadow, twelve-year-old River leaves her grandmother Flo’s Nova Scotia refuge with her cousin Tag and veterinarian Andrea Parker, heading toward allies gathering near Miramichi. The Elect rule surviving settlements through a theocratic system as rebel hunters search the wilderness for people beyond its reach. River has a gift for shadow running, a meditative practice that lets trained travelers slip between moments and move unseen. Andrea takes the name Luke as the group’s chronicler, following Tag’s route across country scarred by fire as she learns how much hope has been placed in River. Their journey draws them toward allies scattered throughout the Maritimes, with River’s parents somewhere ahead and the future of the damaged earth bound to what they may find.
Anne M Smith-Nochasak’s River Becomes Shadow is an excellent dystopian novel, written with an instinctive understanding of what makes River such a great protagonist. The author never loses sight of the fact that River is twelve, which gives enormous expectations placed upon her a distinctly childlike point of view. That sensitivity extends naturally into the setting, where the ruined Maritimes seem shaped by what people remember of the country they once knew. Near Rawdon, thistles rising through highway pavement give that idea a physical form that feels completely at home in River’s world. The author brings the Elect into that world with equal skill, showing how its rule reaches ordinary life through scenes that say plenty in very little space. At a communal farm near Collette, elderly workers bend over pickaxes beneath overseers, turning the regime’s ideology into something instantly understood. Readers who appreciate intelligent dystopian fiction should absolutely pick up River Becomes Shadow. Very highly recommended.
