Review: Great Falls

Great Falls by Steve Watkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Shane idolizes his older brother Jeremy. Since Jeremy has returned from Afghanistan, he is distant. He moved into their parents basement rather than back home with his wife and daughters. Jeremy self medicates to forget the horrors of war. After a concussion on the football field and a spectacularly bad play, Shane and Jeremy escape to the river and canoe from Virginia to West Virginia. As Jeremy deteriorates, Shane worries for himself and his brother, wondering if or when they will get back home.

I put Great Falls in my survival section of the library but it could fit in three of my sections. War for the fact that Jeremy, the brother in the story, is a veteran of Afghanistan who has returned home and is not well. Sports because Shane plays football, like his older brother did. I decided on the survival section because the last half of the book takes place on a river, canoeing through rapids, for days, only stopping to eat a couple of times. Since it is a slim book, many of my reluctant readers should be wiling to give it a try.


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