Hello Beautiful People! Welcome back to another Baddie Book Review! Happy to have you here! For this review, I get into maybe one of the most mind-bending books I’ve read this year. Gone to See The River Man by Kristopher Triana had my jaw on the floor the whole time, so let’s get into it!
Main Characters:
- Lori: The main character, is in love with an imprisoned serial killer, and goes to his old home in the hopes of collecting something for him and delivering it to someone else
- Edmund: The imprisoned killer who is in a relationship with Lori, sends her to go see the river man, a man who can give you anything you want as long as you give him something
- Abby: Lori’s older disabled sister, Lori is her main caregiver
- Paul: Lori and Abby’s younger brother who died when they were younger
Some warnings for future readers:
- This book deals with themes such as rape, and incest
- This book deals with murder
My Review
I’ll just be straight up and say I love a gritty, and extreme book. I was not expecting to be so shocked by this book when I started reading it, but boy was I. I will say that despite the disturbing themes in this book they are all handled in a way that I find to be respectful. Kristopher doesn’t glorify or romanticize the horrors in this book and presents them for what they are, disgusting. I gave this book a 8.5/10 rating.
I thought the book was so interesting in that it focuses on human’s inability to admit their wrongs. Lori the main character spends the whole book trying to convince the reader and herself she’s a good person. It’s in this attempt to convince herself that she is good, that all of her evil gets exposed. Lori starts off by presenting her relationship with Edmund (Edmund Kemper inspired?) to be strictly for scientific purposes. It soon becomes clear that she uses Edmund and what he does as an excuse to present herself as better than she is. She balances her morality scale with that of a murderer and rapist and doesn’t see anything odd with this.
I also loved that a theme in this book is that you can’t outrun the wrong you’ve done, it’s built into who you are. If you try to hide from it the universe will make it known. I felt like this theme of karma was really fitting in the book because no matter how much Lori tries to act like she is not wrong, karma chooses to tell her differently. I also liked that the topic of the book, people being obsessed with serial killers to the point of becoming blind to their crimes, was brought up. Kristopher does not present Lori and Edmund’s relationship to be a good thing, if anything he chooses to show that love can’t fix all. It sure can’t fix evil. Despite Lori presenting like she’s using Edmund it becomes painfully clear early on that he’s using her. When Edmund asks her to retrieve an item from his old home and to deliver it to a person called The River Man, she doesn’t think twice. He knew her loyalty to him and used it to his advantage. The travel to The River Man is hazardous and yet Lori doesn’t bat an eye, all she wants to do is impress Edmund. And what kind of people in this world want to impress a serial killer? Not a good one that’s for sure.
I’ll be honest, parts of this book were hard to stomach. It’s dark, raw, and vile, but that’s what the author is trying to do. He’s not trying to beautify the world, just expose how ugly it can really be. I appreciated as well that it didn’t seem like Kristopher put these things into the book just to make it gritty and dark and provide shock value, but all the horror in this book played a role in explaining why Lori ended up in the spots she did. It explained why she saw the world the way she did, and why she hid from her real self. The topic of unhealthy relationships also was very dominant in this book. The way we cling ourselves to things that aren’t good in the hopes that they will provide us with something, anything, is clear. The way that Abby clings to Lori as she’s the only one who will take care of her, despite the clear way that Lori treats her as a burden fits this. Lori hates having to take care of Abby yet she hopes that it will bring her the wants most.
The relationships and dynamics between the characters were also something that made this a book that was hard to put down. The closer Lori gets to The River Man the more we see the real type of character she is. The way that she essentially is two different people at the same time makes this a book in which we as the reader are just constantly wondering how much more terrible shit can be exposed? I also have to say I liked the conclusion of the book, for people who have read it that might seem a bit messed up, but to me, the conclusion felt satisfying, like the world was resetting itself again.
Summary and Commentary
***Please be aware this section will have spoilers***
The book starts off with Lori reading a letter from Edmund. Lori values his crimes (murder and rape) differently than a normal person would. Lori talks about how she worries that a woman named Niko may be winning over Edmund’s affections. Lori classifies Niko to be a crazed fan who romanticizes serial killers, essentially saying that she’s not a part of that category. But why would she be talking with a serial killer then? Lori presents that she has a gain over Niko though because she and Edmund connect and understand each other. Edmund is not the only serial killer Lori has talked to, but he’s the one she’s created the strongest relationship with. Lori explains that she’s obsessed with true crime and that’s where her interest in serial killers comes in, it’s strictly on a scientific basis, learning more about who these people are and why. Lori explains that to get Edmund to open up she had to tell him a lot about herself, but it was worth the price to learn about him and his crimes.
We then get an introduction to Abby, Lori’s older disabled sister. Abby is disabled cognitively and physically and it’s clear that Lori has to do a lot to take care of her. It’s clear that Lori sees Abby as a burden and often gets frustrated with her. I started to wonder if Abby’s disabilities were lifelong or not. I got the assumption from how Lori treated her that Lori wasn’t expecting to have to take care of her for the rest of her life. The next day Lori goes to visit Edmund at the prison. Lori explains that to beat out the competition she had to come prepared. At the prison, she gets Edmund his favourite snacks to keep him happy. The two flirt a bit but Lori presents that she only flirts with him to keep him on her side, she has to make it seem like she’s really interested in him. Edmund questions Lori if she received his last letter, and if she would be willing to go on the quest he asks.
Edmund tells her that he needs her to find a key that he’s hidden in an old family cabin. After she finds the key he needs her to take it to The River Man as the key belongs to him. Edmund tells her that she shouldn’t have a hard time finding The River Man because he will be expecting her. Lori worries as she thought she was originally just going to go to the cabin. She hoped that the cabin would give her something to sensationalize, but now with this added-on task, she’s not so sure. She still decided to do it anyway, hoping that she would finally learn enough about Edmund to make something of herself. Since Lori is Abby’s sole caretaker she struggles to decide if she should bring her along or not. Abby is persistent about coming with her, and so Lori decides that she will have to bring her. I already felt that this was going to cause things to go bad not because of Abby but because of Lori’s anger towards her. Lori and Abby travel towards the cabin. Since there is no road to access it Lori and Abby have to hike to the cabin. Obviously, this is a huge struggle for Abby as she’s physically disabled, but this doesn’t deter Lori. I started to wonder if there really was anything that would. I mean if she’s willing to follow a crazy request from a serial killer, why wouldn’t she drag her disabled sister on a hike?
Next, we get a look at one of the letters Lori sent to Edmund before travelling to the river. Lori in the letter talks about how she’s also done bad things, and hurt people, so she knows how Edmund feels. She also explains in this letter that she understands that murder and rape was his only way to represent love. Back in the present as Abby and Lori continue along, they find a strange lone man walking by himself. Lori worries so she hides Abby away so that this man will only see Lori. The man seems to know that Lori is here to see The River Man and questions why she hid Abby away. He said that she couldn’t go to The River Man alone. Lori tries to ask him more about The River Man but he just brushes the questions off and tells her she’ll have a nice time. He walks away from them singing a tune about The River Man.
We get brought into the past when Lori and Abby were younger. We get introduced to Paul who is the girl’s younger brother. It’s also clear that Abby for a long time was fully able mentally and physically. Since Lori talked about how she was the only one to take care of Abby I started to feel like something was going to happen to their brother. The three of them are at the river and Abby and Lori are trying to push Paul to swing off a tree swing into the river. Paul seems to present that he’s closer to Abby than Lori because Lori is often mean to him. So it’s clear she’s been a bit of a meanie all of her life. It’s clear that the three siblings have a bit of a toxic dynamic, and it’s nice to get a bit of a picture of how Lori and Abby were before Abby clearly got hurt. Back in the present Lori and Abby continue along looking for the cabin. Lori resents Abby for what her disability ‘cost’ their family. She seems to put Abby getting hurt as the reason their family unit crumbled. I felt like this was unfair and we clearly weren’t getting the full picture. Things like that can absolutely cause struggles for families but something like that causing it all to break apart? Doesn’t seem right to me. I felt like this was something Lori does though so she doesn’t have to face the truth, just places blame on other things.
As the two walk along it’s clear that Lori is pushing Abby too hard. At one point Abby says fuck you to Lori and it’s rattling for Lori since Abby doesn’t tend to have those words in her vocabulary. Lori tries to ignore the oddness of what Abby has said and just continues to push them to move on. It’s clear as well that the words hurt Lori, which I thought was odd considering how much she seems to dislike Abby. I think it’s this narcissistic thing for Lori though, she needs to be liked and seen as good by the people around her, even if she isn’t being that. It also becomes clearer that Loris’ drive to connect to Edmund may not be strictly scientific. It’s clear she has deeper feelings for him than she is willing to admit, and while she tries to convince herself she doesn’t enjoy the attention she gets from him, it’s clear she does. She’s also clearly trying to convince herself that Edmund is not as bad of a man as he really is. We get another look at the letters but this time it’s one from Edmund to Lori. The letter is disgusting, to say the least, and sexually vile. It’s the letter though where he asks her to go get the key. So Lori read this vile letter, and still wanted to do this for him? Yeah, girls got the love goggles on.
Back in the present Abby and Lori have finally found the cabin. The cabin isn’t anything like Lori expected. It’s dark, dank, and horrifying. It doesn’t look like a place that anyone should live in. Edmund had told her to find the key in a hope chest, but as Lori goes around the cabin she can’t find one. She is obviously quite pissed because if she can’t find the key, then she can’t get Edmund to love her forever. Lori doesn’t feel like the cabin is a safe place for Abby so she finds her a spot outside and continues looking. Lori finds cellar doors and hopes that maybe the chest will be hidden down there. As she goes down into the cellar Lori is met with a gross smell. It’s clear it’s the smell of decomposition, but the question of whether it was human or not was still up in the air. Lori soon discovers it’s the very decomposed body of a young woman. This is the first time though that Lori has had to be face to face with Edmund’s cruelty. She surprises herself with her emotions but questions herself since she always knows what kind of man he is. Realistically she should have expected this. Despite finding this body Lori is also horrified by her lack of hate for Edmund, and starts to really admit to herself that she’s not obsessed with Edmund’s crimes, she’s obsessed with him. To Lori’s further disappointment, the body is the only thing in the cellar, and that’s when it dawns on her. Edmund said to look for a chest, and while it’s not the traditional chest you or I may think of, there was a chest in the basement. When I read this I was like oh hell no. If Lori goes and digs in this dead girl’s body then clear her interest in Edmund is not to write a true crime book, but to fill the loneliness in her heart. Lori starts to see that this was a part of the test for her all along. Edmund wanted to figure out how devoted to him she really was. If she’s willing to rattle through a dead person’s body, then clearly she and Edmund have more in common than we may have assumed.
Lori does what we all hoped she wouldn’t do and goes looking for the key, and she finds it. After she retrieves the key Lori gets locked in the cellar. She feels like someone locked her in there, and when Abby lets her out, Abby claims she has nothing to do with it. When Lori questions her on who did Abby states that their brother Pete did, the one who’s not with them. Abby tells Lori that Pete was mad with her so he locked her in there. This disturbs Lori as Abby cannot make up extravagant lies. She brushes it off though, and with the key in hand, the main thing on her mind is getting to The River Man. We then get another look at the past, and the dynamic between the siblings. It’s clear that when Abby was able bodies Lori was extremely jealous of her. Lori takes everything that Abby does personally. When Abby starts to date David an older boy that Lori was crushing on, she assumes that Abby is doing it just to hurt her. She feels this even though according to her no one knows about her crush on David. It seems like even as a young person Lori was always trying to place herself as the victim in different scenarios. Lori feels insecure because she’s certain Abby is having sex with him. Since Lori is younger than Abby her experience is less, but again she takes this personally and thinks she needs to be at the exact same level in terms of experience to show she’s better than Abby.
Still, in the past, we got a look at a letter Lori sent to Edmund. Lori explains to Edmund in the letter the sexual desires she had as a teen. Lori then mentions that her experiences with sex were often a bit on the demented side, and she blames this on Abby, and her desire to be better than her. Lori then tells him about the time she stumbled on Abby and David having sex in the woods behind their home. Seeing them together helped Lori realize that David would never be hers. Therefore she perceived Abby as ruining her chance for love, for sex. She calls her a snake in the grass, but again Abby never knew of Lori’s love for David, so why would she have just assumed that. It shows that Lori fills her reality with a lot of delusion to fit the narrative of the story she wants to tell.
Back in the present Abby and Lori continue to travel along the river in the hopes of finding The River Man. It starts to storm and Lori worries about what she is going to do with Abby. They run into another man on the river, a different one than they ran into at the start. The man invites them to come to his home to hide from the storm. It’s clear he isn’t The River Man, and he questions Lori on why she wants to find him. We find out his name is Buzz, and he’s been living on the river for a lot of his life. Buzz tells her that it was nasty of her friend to ask her to take this journey and that the woods are very unforgiving. He says that there aren’t a lot of good people in these woods, mostly people trying to hide from the past. He says that something drives people to this river, to the answers that The River Man provides, but it’s never as easy as it may seem. The River Man doesn’t look to help people’s souls but to make them as bad as he is. The reason why The River Man requires something to be brought to him is so that he can see how committed you are, and how badly you want his help. When Buzz finds out who sent Lori here it’s clear he’s horrified, and he questions Lori as to why she would be friends with someone like that.
The book then transports back to a perspective of the past in Lori and Abby’s youth. Lori goes into detail about her struggles to find a sexual partner to practice with. It’s clear that Lori suffers from major insecurities and often sees herself as unwanted by others, or that she somehow needs to prove herself to people to get them to like her. It’s also clear that she still holds Abby in the position of being the one who stands in the way of her getting what she wants. For the first time, we also get a direct perspective from Abby and not from Lori. Abby explains that one night she snuck out of her parents’ home to go to a party. When she snuck back into the house it was late. She heard strange noises coming from her brother’s room. When Abby peaked her head in… I mean look it’s even just hard to say but what she saw when she looked in was Lori and Pete engaging in an incestuous relationship. I appreciated Abby’s pure disgust when she saw what she saw because I felt the same way. Abby can close the door without being seen, but this is now terrible information that she’s burdened with. As someone who has siblings… like I just can’t. I cannot imagine the horror. I think that further, this shows that Lori will go to no end to try to solve her insecurities, even if her methods create new ones. It’s clear she is a demented person on many levels, and look I know what you’re thinking, ‘what if she was forced’. From the picture Abby describes to us it is clear that Lori was a willing participant.
Back in the present, it’s the next day after Lori and Abby have spent the night in Buzz’s cabin. Despite Lori clearly affectionately speaking about Edmund, she’s back to trying to convince herself she doesn’t have any feelings for him. Lori and Abby plan to continue walking. Buzz tries to convince them to go back home. He explains that the walk to The River Man is not easy, and not a walk that Abby can easily complete. Lori of course being stubborn, and not caring about Abby’s well-being says that’s not an option. Lori asks if Buzz will take them up the river in his boat. Buzz tries to convince Lori that she’s only going to find trouble, but yeah she doesn’t care. Lori offers Buzz money to take them in his boat, and so he agrees. The three then start up the river together in the boat. As they go up the river Buzz tells them about the different people that live in the cabins. Lori learns that the man they ran into at the start is called The Deacon. The Deacon according to Buzz is a nut job, drowned his own children in the river in the name of God. When Lori questions why he was never in trouble Buzz explains to her that things are different around there. The trip down the river is taking a long time, and with all this time in her head, Lori starts to question herself. She questions why she would be willing to do this all for a man who she’s just interested in for his story, she tells herself that this is only something you do for someone you love. I mean I don’t think that fair because I sure as hell wouldn’t stick my hand in a murdered woman for someone I love.
As they continue to travel down the river, weird things start to happen with Abby. It’s as though the version of herself before she was hurt was coming out. Her speech was clearer, her vocabulary wider, moving differently. She starts to challenge Lori in ways that Lori doesn’t know how to handle. The interesting thing though is that the things that Abby says to Lori are the things that Lori’s insecure mind has conjured up. The ‘better’ Abby gets the more Lori risks falling back into that sad little girl who just wanted to be better than her big sister. I think that’s what the river does though, it’s supposed to expose your worst fears, and your biggest desires. We then get another perspective from a past letter Lori sent to Edmund. It’s not super significant but it shows that clearly the way that Lori connected to Edmund was by telling him her darkest secrets, and we all know what that would be.
We get more of an insight into what those secrets are from another perspective. It starts with Lori painting the picture of her crumbling family. Her brother Pete has stopped eating and has turned into a severe depressive. Pete getting sick has further caused her parents to be very depressed because they don’t know how to help him. Mainly because they don’t know what’s wrong. My heart was breaking at this part. Pete clearly could not talk to his parents about what was bothering him and it was eating at him. Lori presents this though as if she isn’t playing a role in this situation, and it made me so mad. She then gets into how their sexual relationship started. It’s clear through Lori’s descriptions that she is sexually assaulting and raping her brother. However, she does not see it this way. She sees it as innocent experimentation that turns into more. Pete clearly does not want to have sex with his sister, but Lori takes his natural bodily signals as signs that he wants her to go on despite what he says. Look it’s just gross. I appreciate that the author made sure that even though Lori sees her actions in a demented way as though it isn’t wrong, it’s painfully clear through her descriptions that it is. It’s almost like Lori is trying to convince herself that this is okay even though she knows it’s not.
Despite Pete’s suffering Lori continues to rape him often. When Pete tries to put his foot down Lori threatens to tell her parents but switches the roles of who is the aggressor. Ugh. I mean I can’t even put into words how badly I feel for Pete. This poor kid. Ever since Abby saw Pete and Lori she’s been giving Lori the cold shoulder. Of course, Lori being the narcissist she is, thinks it has to do with fucking David. The guy Abby doesn’t even know she likes. Abby decides she’s going to approach Lori about what’s going on with her and Pete. When Abby approaches her again Lori the idiot thinks it has to do with David. When Abby breaks to her that she knows she and Pete have been having sex of course Lori loses it. I also was very much team Abby all the way. Abby approaches Lori with disgust. Abby tells Lori that if she doesn’t tell their parents, she will. Abby offers to talk with them with Lori but Lori refuses. Abby tries to approach her with some form of kindness because she knows the only way Pete will get better is if the truth is out. Lori then does what I saw coming, and she becomes the reason Abby became her ‘burden’. She pushed her down the cliff in the woods by their house. I mean Lori will stop at no end to protect herself, it’s insane. When she spoke earlier about her family crumbling, she just omitted to explain that she was the one who caused it all.
Back in the present, the three continue to travel down the river. It seems that the river water starts to turn into blood. This of course frightens Buzz and he says they need to turn back. Lori of course being the stubborn bitch she is refuses. I mean this nice man takes them out on his boat and she’s just so damn demanding. Lori can feel that they are getting close and she refuses to go back. Lori then starts to try to beat poor Buzz. She’s insane. He tries to defend himself against her but when Abby cracks him over the head with an oar, it doesn’t end well for Buzz. I was so mad. This poor sweet man was just trying to live his life, and Lori had to ruin his life just like she’s ruined so many others. I mean shit she had no fear of destroying her own blood, so why would she care about spilling anyone else’s? We get a perspective from Abby then. She explains she hit Buzz because he was trying to hurt Lori. Abby speaks about how the river is reminding her of things and that’s why she’s remembering different words and phrases.
Abby then starts to make comments to Lori about how she likes to hurt people, make the water run red, and right she is. This of course scares Lori though and she starts to worry that maybe Abby has remembered more from the past than Lori would like her to. When Lori pushed Abby, she told her parents that Abby had fallen when the rope swing broke. If Abby remembered what really happened, then Lori could be exposed for what she really is. Lori has never had to feel guilt, because she’s never had consequences. She’s been able to bury those feelings and avoid them. Lori can send Buzz’s body off the boat and into the river. Abby keeps creepily asking if she can have his foot. Lori blames Abby for Buzz’s death but personally, I don’t think so. I mean sure Abby may be becoming more cognitively aware, but I do feel like she was just trying to protect Lori, she just didn’t know it was from a fight Lori started. I think Abby does deserve some blame but yeah not all like Lori wants to pass it off as. Lori then becomes jealous of Abby because she feels like if she killed Buzz maybe she could connect more to Edmund. Girl what?! You’ve done that plenty your good.
The sisters finally arrive at The River Man’s shack. However, it’s atop a hill deep in the woods. It won’t be easy for Abby to get up there, but she refuses to stay behind with the boat. Lori then starts to reflect on the ways that Abby ruined her life. I am sorry, you disabled your sister, but are mad at her for what she’s done to you? Karmas is a bitch babe. I mean Lori just doesn’t seem to see the irony that it’s what she deserves. If she’s going to treat people as a token of her gain and gratification then she will be the one to suffer the consequences when that goes wrong. I’ll be real I was just starting to get so pissed with how unable Lori was at taking really any form of responsibility. Sure she admits she’s the reason Abby’s that way but that’s about it. As the two go up to the shack they start to hear the voice of their brother Pete. Abby is ecstatic because she tells Lori that this is what she wished for, she wanted Pete back, and The River Man has delivered. Lori of course is starting to become freaked.
Back in the past Pete’s condition continues to get worse. Doctors know that this is mental and emotional, but without knowing what’s broken him no one can help. With Abby incapacitated in a hospital bed, unable to speak or move, Loris is the only one who can end the mystery. But of course, she never will. It dawns on Lori that she’s managed to cause both of her siblings to be half-dead in the hospital at the same time. With that, she’s ultimately broken her parents. She sees Pete’s actions as him punishing her. Again a narcissistic bitch. However, she sees that with her parents busy with her siblings, she has a newfound freedom, and she likes it. She also gets sympathy for her siblings being sick and hurt. UGH. Eventually, Pete’s illnesses get the best of him and he passes. I felt so bad for their parents.
Back in the present, the sisters start to get closer to The River Man’s home. As they start to get closer they can hear Buzz speaking to them from the woods. It seemed to be that the woods manifested their guilt. Buzz tells them the story of what his dad did after he went to see The River Man. Essentially he went off the edge and killed some people. He explains that The River Man didn’t make him do this though, just helped him bring out the evil that was already in him. Then all of a sudden Abby has Buzz’s foot. Look I am not clear on how she got the foot but she had his foot. As they get closer Lori thinks about how the truth hurts, and the truth is she is in love with Edmund. The pain she has gone through to get here has been all for his love. As Lori goes to head into the shack it’s only an open abyss below that she falls into. As bad as it sounds I was like oh good, so is she dead then? In the abyss, Lori is floating naked. She thinks about what she wants and what she wants is to dominate and control, and it seems like it’s the first time she’s really admitted this to herself. She thinks about how there is only one person whom she would submit, and that’s Edmund. I thought it was interesting because I almost felt like this was Lori floating in her mind, creeping into the corners she had been too afraid to. She starts to hear music and goes to follow it. It’s The River Man.
As Lori approaches him she starts to think about what she wants from him. What she wants is to be with her love forever. The River Man questions her desires and her motivations. He questions why she would want to be with a man like Edmund. She says it’s because he’s misunderstood like her. The River Man tells Lori that she makes bad decisions and how does she know this one will work out? It’s clear her choices for love in the past were not great. Again this is the first time Lori has been forced to face her choices, and see what it is she does to others. We get a perspective from Abby and it’s clear the abyss Lori fell into was an illusion, and she’s passed out on the floor. Abby of course worries for her. The River Man is in the corner of the room and Abby begs him to help her wake Lori up. From Abby’s perspective, it seems like Lori looks like she’s drowned in the river. Abby struggles to comprehend how she can take care of herself without Lori. The River Man tells her that Lori has chosen what she wants and asks what it is Abby wants. She presses she wants Lori back, and to leave the river. Abby gives The River Man Buzz’s foot in exchange for Lori’s back. Lori awakes and the two head back down the hill.
As they head back Lori starts to question something The River Man said. He spoke to Lori about how she always cleared out the obstacles in her life no matter what, and how if she wanted to be with Edmund she needed to do that. While yes finding The River Man was an obstacle we all know what she sees as her biggest one, Abby. So what does the crazy ass do? She finishes the job she wasn’t able to so long ago. She pushes Abby off the cliff, again. This time though, she doesn’t survive it. This made me so mad because Abby was stuck between choosing Pete or Lori to use her request on. She had said long ago she wanted to use it on Pete, but she used it to save Lori. Lori then repays her by killing her. Lori is the personification of selfishness, she cannot see outside of herself or what she wants. She feels no guilt for killing her sister because that means she gets Edmund. As Lori gets back to the place they started at The Deacon is waiting there for her. The Deacon tells her that he knew she would return this way, it’s what happens here. He says that she had done good, which coming from a guy who drowned his kids isn’t much. Lori tells him she won’t be seeing him again, but he tells her he will be seeing her in the papers one day, it’s what always happened to those who went to see The River Man. As Lori drives back home, alone, the radio tells a news story about some prisoners breaking out. Lori already knew that it would be Edmund, that she had done good.
Lori is ecstatic, everything she had done had been worth it. The book ends with Lori getting back to her apartment excited for when she and Edmund will get to be together. However, he’s already beat her to her apartment. Lori is again ecstatic thinking of her love waiting for her inside. When she walks in though she sees her apartment is covered in blood. When she goes into the bedroom Edmund is sitting on the edge of the bed cradling the head of Niko, Lori’s competition. Lori is jealous that he’s brought another woman to her home. He explains that when he got here and she wasn’t here, he had to get his needs filled. He had never wanted to create a loving relationship with her, only one that filled his needs. Lori seems to know that this is her end, but as long as Edmund is happy she is happy. The book ends off with what we can assume is Edmund killing Lori. I mean this is what she wanted right? To be with a sadistic killer, well this is what comes with it. If I am being honest I was happy the book ended this way. If it ended with Lori and Edmund running off into the sunset together well that wouldn’t be karma, this is. Lori spread so much blood only to have her love spread hers, and that’s what she deserved. She sacrificed others’ lives so she could live the one she wanted, only to have that ripped from her. Even in her last moments, she’s trying to convince herself that this is love and that Edmund has chosen her.
Gone to See The River Man messed with my brain. It was so much build-up, so much pain, for no one to come out a winner, except Edmund. The reality of the world is that you can give all of yourself to others, but that doesn’t mean they will respect you. You cannot outrun your past or the truth, no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise, and Lori is a shining example of that. I really enjoyed this book, it was fast-paced and hard to put down and I am hoping to check out more of the author’s work sometimes.
I hope you enjoyed this review! Feel free to check out my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I drop a new review.
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