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In The Heart Of The Canyon (2009)

by Elisabeth Hyde(Favorite Author)

3.7 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0307263673 (ISBN13: 9780307263674)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Knopf

review 1: This book had a unique plot that kept you guessing. I enjoyed this easy going book. Instead of focusing on the generic love or action story, it took on the ties and struggles one encounters when rafting with strangers for two weeks. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I did not see the ending coming at all. I recommend it to anyone who loves adventure, this book inspired me to one day white water raft for two weeks.
review 2: As others have written, this is the account of a rafting trip down the Colorado RIver through the Grand Canyon in summer. Thousands of people have taken such trips over the last 50 years or so.In some ways it's the saga of a great trip as a metaphor of a trip though life, soft of like the Odyssey. Only it is not so obviously focused on just one... more person.There are three guides. In charge is JT, who is about 50 and has done this 124 times before. The second is named Abo, a man around 30 or so, and the third is an attractive young woman of 27 named Dixie. Each of them is in charge of a boat. The paid tourists ride in one or another boat. Most stay in the same boat all the time, but not all.The basic descriptions are very convincing. It is clear that the author has actually made this trip. The descriptions of the geology, river rapids, and camping life are very good. But the book is really about the people, mostly the tourists. The title "Heart of the Canyon" makes that clear. As the days pass we are mostly concerned with one tourist or couple, then the focus shifts to another. There is a couple in their 70s, one of whom has Alzheimer's, who we focus on for a while. There are suspenseful situations. Later, we focus on a family with two boys aged around 11 - 12, then a woman with a seventeen year old obese daughter. Early on, there is a surprising discovery of a dog (not allowed in the Canyon), which adds a lot of complications. Near the end, a surprising revelation is made about one of the younger tourists, and we wonder what has happened to the dog.Two of the tourists never get "enough ink"; we never really learn about them as we do the others. This is disappointing. Another twenty or thirty pages longer would have allowed more depth. Similarly, while we get into JT's life in some depth, we do not do that with Dixie or Abo.I found myself not caring too much about these people for long stretches as I read it. Other times, there were some intriguing surprises. In the end, it's a good but not great book that will provide a few insights about life on the "big river." less

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