slow river, despite its flaws (mostly with the main character), was a book i devoured. i was actually surprised with how quickly i was reading it since i'm used to nicola griffith's very slow books (ironically enough the one book so far that isn't slow is called slow river). and i love her slow books but the fast pacing here was welcome.

some things i enjoyed greatly: the imagery/prose: as someone who has a very atmosphere-focused writing style, i am obsessed with what nicola griffith has done in that regard here. she is a master of nature writing and can make the weather, a blade of grass, a squirrel climbing the tree, so vivid and beautiful. in slow river, this nature writing created such stark imagery, especially when the main setting is a grimy old city. i highlighted every little piece of imagery that moved me/made me see the scene like a movie and now like half the book is underlined.

the narrative structure: slow river is split into three time threads—lore's (the main character) childhood, the immediate aftermath of her kidnapping at 18, and her start working at the waste management plant three years later under a fake identity. these three threads start simultaneously and run parallel to each other throughout the book until at the very end the first thread gets to the time at the beginning of the second thread and the second thread gets to the time at the beginning of the third thread. the way they're synced up lines up perfectly with all the twists and reveals. it was so satisfying to read. i love when the narrative structure adds something to the plot in this way.

the themes/vibes: this is a very grim read (take all the cws seriously). the main character, despite coming from an extremely rich family, goes through a lot of abuse and trauma and all around horrible events. as someone who's obsessed with reading about characters going through trauma to make sense of my own, i really loved this book (which might be weird to say but it is what it is). slow river deals with a lot of dark and heavy topics well (except a few things, specifically lore's judgement of sex work). there's an undercurrent of hope that runs throughout the story that i found to be perfectly balanced with the darkness.

toxic yuri: i love love love toxic gay relationships with my whole entire heart. lore and bipolar-coded spanner have such an intense and fucked up relationship and it feels so real in so many ways. nicola griffith does such an amazing job writing both of them as such real relatable people (at least to me lol) with the kind of problems and issues that are not black-and-white. neither of them are good people nor are they completely evil. they are just two people trying to survive and their codependence is a part of that. i also really enjoy the way nicola griffith builds up the main character since she's been a child and the way her familial relationships had formed her into the person she is presently.

however, as previously mentioned, my biggest issue with this book is the way lore is written sometimes. she comes from privilege and despite all the shit she goes through, she doesn't realize how much of that privilege she still holds. this makes sense for her character and i like that she's portrayed this way but i wish this privilege was challenged somehow or acknowledged in some more obvious way. a lot of the evils of her family were oversimplified and i wish lore was forced to deal with it more (and with the hypocrisy of judging spanner of not wanting to get a "clean" job). but again, it just shows how privileged she is that she doesn't have to.

i also wasn't a huge fan of the ending. it felt a little rushed and consequence-less, especially after all the shit we went through to get there. it felt idealistic in a way that matched the main character but didn't match the world nicola griffith created here. i'm not sure how i feel about it because i can still see it making sense but i also wanted something more impactful.

anyway, as i said, despite the flaws, slow river is definitely making my top 10 reads of 2026. its atmosphere has been haunting me the entire time i had been reading and has already entered my dreams a few times.

of course, i also made a 🔗playlist.