Read Lost Without the River A Memoir Barbara Hoffbeck Scoblic 9781631525315 Books

Product details Paperback 296 pages Publisher She Writes Press (April 16, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 163152531X

Lost Without the River A Memoir Barbara Hoffbeck Scoblic 9781631525315 Books Reviews

• Lost Without the River is more a collection of short stories or really essays. Ms. Scoblic is sharing her childhood and family with her readers. She invites us into her life to experience her adolescence on a small farm in South Dakota with a passel of siblings.
  
  Each chapter is a different tale and each one offers a new insight into (very) small town life in a time very different from today. The author shares her family and their successes and failures with honesty and emotion as she tries to find herself along the way. She knows that this rural life is not for her but can she leave her family?
  
  Once I figured out that the book wasn’t telling a linear story I started reading it in bursts rather than straight through like I would a novel. I found it to be a perfect way to relax before bed or to fill some time here or there. Ms. Scoblic has a wonderful writing style that brings her world alive. I’m keeping the book on my nightstand so that I can pick it up when I have a few minutes here or there as these stories are worth re-reading.
  
  I received a free copy for my honest review
• Lost Without the River, a poignant story about a girl who yearns to experience the bigger world away from the Depression-era farm she grew up on then spends her later years working her way back to it.
  
  As a child, I always wanted to grow up on a farm so Barbara’s story had particular appeal to me. Through her descriptive, lyrical prose, her words made me feel I was with her as she ran through fields of wildflowers and stood on the riverbank to watch the ice chunks float by.
  
  But this is much more than a story of growing up on a farm. It is a window into Depression-era American farm life and the hardworking parents who did their best during those troubling times. It is a universal story of resilience, love, courage and returning home again.
  
  I highly recommend this beautifully written, engaging memoir about leaving home and returning again.
• I enjoyed reading this poignant memoir of a woman who grew up in northeastern South Dakota during the 1940s-50s. All her descriptions were very vivid. What is so interesting is that long after she and her siblings left the farm, they all carried vestiges of the land with them. Times were difficult for her parents, caring for a large family during the Great Depression. I empathized with her mourning as she continued to make annual trips back to her home town how time eroded people and places, left alive only in memory. I enjoyed the picture the author included and the partial family genealogy. A memorable read! Thanks to NetGalley for the advance read.
• Lost without the River by Barbara Hoffbeck Scoblic is a memoir about her childhood growing up in a small town in South Dakota during the depression era. Barbara paints a virtual picture with her descriptions of South Dakota’s farms and rivers as if you grew up there yourself. I have not read such a wonderfully written memoir like Lost without the River. Barbara’s passion and pain show so vividly in her book you can feel it yourself. I would like to thank Caitlin Hamilton Summie, Barbara, and NetGalley for this ARC.
• Compelling and thought-provoking, LOST WITHOUT THE RIVER is a highly polished memoir with enormous heart. In the candid pages, author Barbara Hoffbeck Scoblic shares a deft account of Depression-era farm life. Delivered in a warm style, her engrossing story of familial bonds—that sometimes chafe—is compelling and well-paced. And though it's desperately sad at times, the overriding theme is one of hope and resiliency.