1/5 stars
What the River Knows, by Isabel Ibañez (2023)
TW: Normalized alcoholism
I feel like I can't really top the GoodReads review I just read that simply says, "The river ain't know shit." Ha! But I'll try and use a few more words to describe why I hated it (cuz that can be fun).
Also, I'm going to spoil the ending because everything about it is dumb.
Inez lives in Argentina with her aunt and two cousins - one of whom she's very close with, while the other seems to hate her for no discernible reason. Why no parents? Oh, she has them - they just live in Egypt the majority of the time, and only visit once a year or so to say a quick hi and then abandon their daughter again. When Inez receives a letter from her Uncle Ricardo, who also lives in Egypt, that her parents have gone missing and are presumed dead, she escapes in the night to board a ship that will take her across the ocean to search for them.
Once in Egypt, she meets her uncle, who's nasty to her all the time and tries to put her back on a boat to Argentina immediately (a trip that took like 3 months just to get there in the first place). She also meets her uncle's right-hand-man Whit, a guy who is literally just a mean drunk, but who is made out to be a brooding heartthrob who just needs to feel true love in order for him to give up the drink. Like, no, sweetheart, getting black-out drunk every night, and taking sips from a flask all day doesn't go away overnight just because an obnoxious girl from another country shows up and acts mean back to your meanness and calls it a crush.
I was legitimately disturbed to think that this book was written for a YA audience, because I would never want a young kid to read this and think you can 'fix' alcoholism with love. This book is garbage for that reason alone. Also, not for nothin' but these two aren't in love. They might be in lust. But they have no spark, nothing in common, and are constantly lying to each other.
But back to the plot. Uncle Ricardo is trying to find Cleopatra's grave, and the way to do that is to... follow the magic? Yeah, there's a system of magic here that doesn't make much sense, and also doesn't really serve a purpose. Magic used to be very prevalent in Cleo's time, but it has since died off. But some objects that magic once touched still have a the residue attached to them. Like, there's a magic scarf that can shrink things you put underneath it, and a magic shoe that lights up. Inez was in possession of a ring that held magic (before it was stolen almost immediately when she arrived), and that ring belonged to none other than Cleopatra. So, now Uncle Ricardo can use Inez to help weed out the similar magic that should be at her long-lost grave site.
Spoilers now...
Then her mother shows up - Gasp! She's not dead? - and tells her that Ricardo is evil and works in the illegal trade of Egyptian artifacts, and that she (Inez) must steal those artifacts and give them to her mother to protect. From the get-go this mom seems super sketchy, and lo-and-behold, she is actually kind of a monster. Tricks Inez into stealing stuff so that she can sell it on the black market, then screws over her lover (and maybe she killed her husband?).
And then her beloved cousin - the one who's not a jerk - shows up, cuz I guess any young girl who's all alone can board a boat in the 1940's and spend 3 months traveling the ocean on their own without raising any red flags. And Inez's mom double crosses everyone, putting their lives in danger, and the cousin is murdered. Literally the only character that wasn't horrible. Inez, Whit, and Ricardo get free, though Ricardo continues to be an ass to Inez even though he's technically, turns out, the good guy. He decides to again try to force her to leave Egypt and go back to her aunt and cousin, who will be devastated and furious that the other cousin is dead. But Inez and Whit decide to defy his wishes and try to find the scheming mom to bring her to justice, &/or the maybe-dead dad who was actually wonderful (except for the whole abandoned-his-daughter-cuz-he-just-loooooooved-Egypt-so-much thing).
It's the first of a series of books that I will in no way be reading the rest of, and I don't think you should either! Because this book is entirely filled with unlikable characters - whiney, entitled Inez, alcoholic "love interest" Whit, freakin' mean-ass Uncle Ricardo, asshole parents, a crabby aunt, and a bitchy cousin.
UP NEXT: A House with Good Bones, by T. Kingfisher
😳 This sounds awful!