What the River Knows

What the River Knows Book Review by Isabel Ibañez

Mystery, murder, romance—this book has it all. What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez is a fun and thrilling young adult novel set in the late 1800’s in Egypt. The main character, Inez Olivera, finds herself making the long trek from Argentina to Egypt in order to solve the mystery of her parents and try to figure out along the way why they always left her for six months every year to go visit their beloved Egypt. 

I want to say more about the plot, but it’s better if you go in knowing as little as possible (although the book jacket gives away way, way too much—avoid reading it if you can).

If a headstrong Latina main character who won’t take no for an answer, multiple mysteries that intersect and keep you turning the pages, a witty and actually good enemies-to-lovers romance, and a beautiful setting filled with magic and history alike sound alluring to you, then you will adore this book as much as I did. 

The characters in this book were all multi-faceted and interesting. Inez herself, while not perfect, was a pretty infallible main character, especially considering that even though she’s a sheltered young lady living in a Bridgerton-Esque society, she’s incredibly determined, intelligent, witty, brave, and not worried whatsoever about societal etiquette.

I’m not saying that women weren’t capable of having these qualities in 1884, but Inez acts like a modern, independent woman living in 2024 instead of a person from her own time period. This annoyed me from time to time, but overall, it’s a small criticism to accept in the face of such a fun book. 

The other characters all added good depth to the story, including the British love interest, Whitford Hayes, and Inez’s remote and closed off uncle, Tio Ricardo. Instead of welcoming Inez to Egypt with open arms and charming smiles, they are cold and distant, constantly calling her a headache and telling her to go back home. 

Inez, unwilling to leave until she’s solved the mystery of her parents, slowly carves out a place for herself amongst her uncle’s archaeology team, proving herself as a talented artist and as a capable adult.

As the book continues, more characters are introduced but I found the relationship between Inez and Whit and Inez and her Uncle the stars of the show. 

Inez’s feelings around her family were complex and nuanced. Her love for her parents simultaneously warred with her anger at them, her attraction to Whit danced alongside her rejection of his alcoholism and the fact that he works for her uncle, she desired her Tio’s acceptance and love while also being wary and suspicious of him. 

These intricate relationships were one of the things I enjoyed the most about What the River Knows. However, emotions were not always Isabel Ibañez’s strong suit. My other main criticism of this book was a strange lack of emotional beats during certain scenes.

Sometimes Inez’s emotions were spot on and multi-dimensional—portraying the thoughts and feelings of a real human being dealing with enormous change and shocking events.

Other times, however, I felt like Inez focused on the completely wrong thing while enormous occasions of magnitude were occurring. I won’t spoil what these are, but she would learn a harrowing filial detail and comment for a page and a half instead on how attractive Whit was. 

….Like what? It’s the equivalent of having a tornado hurtling towards your house and only remarking instead on what your crush posted on instagram. The gravity of what Inez focused on didn’t always make sense. 

For a main character who’s supposedly so mature and smart, it was a bad stylistic choice that she didn’t reflect or even think about massively significant events happening in her life during different moments in the plot beyond a few simple phrases. It bothered me just as much as I thought it was a dead give away. 

Isabel Ibañez tries to create some twists and turns in this novel—all of which I predicted because Inez simply didn’t think about a particular issue too deeply.

Whenever that happened, it was a clear indicator that more was going to happen with said issue. I think Isabel Ibañez was trying to be sneaky and subtle, but instead it made it glaringly obvious and shallower than the book needed to be. 

While some of Isabel Ibañez’s emotional beats scored and others failed, her descriptions of Egypt always succeeded. I’ve never read a book set in Egypt before and I loved all the descriptions about it.

From the lurid details of the Nile, the history involving Britain’s imperialization, to the food, language, and architecture, Isabel Ibañez did an incredible job setting the scene and making it magical. 

And while her words were magical in of itself, Isabel Ibañez also literally made her world magical by having artifacts imbued with old world sorcery. The small slice of life fantasy elements never interrupted the story too much, but every time a small piece of magic would arrive, I devoured the explanation of what it did, how it worked, and its connection to Ancient Egypt. 

By the time I turned the last page of What the River Knows, I had thoroughly enjoyed myself. The characters, the world, the relationships—it was all a beautiful concoction that allowed me to overlook the flaws I perceived while reading.

While I don’t think this is a perfect book by any means, it was really thought out and different from other YA books in the sense that the tropes Ibañez uses were all very well executed, especially the enemies-to-lovers romance (which is getting increasingly saturated and cliched in the YA market). 

I am excited to read the sequel and can’t wait to discover Inez’s next adventure, her relationship with Whit, more information about her parents, and the continued world building that helped make this book such a charming read from start to finish in the first place. 

Recommendation: If you want a Bridgerton-Esque tale with hints of magic, complicated family relationships, and set in the fascinating land of Egypt, this is the book for you.

Even if you don't like all those things, this is still the book for you because it’s a great book that will hook you one way or another, be it the romance, the history, the low fantasy, or the crocodile-packed action sequences. 

Score: 7/10