Leaving Blythe River.

☆☆☆☆

Leaving Blythe river.

catherine ryan hyde.

Publisher : Lake Union Publishing.

Publication Date: May 24,2016.

Genre: Contemporary Adventure. 
Format|Pages: E ARC| 314.

 Source: Received from publisher, through Netgalley.

Seventeen-year-old Ethan Underwood is totally unprepared to search for his father in the Blythe River National Wilderness. Not only is he small, scrawny, and skittish but he’s barely speaking to the man after a traumatic betrayal. Yet when his father vanishes from their remote cabin and rangers abandon the rescue mission, suddenly it’s up to Ethan to keep looking. Angry or not, he’s his father’s only hope.



With the help of three locals—a fearless seventy-year-old widow, a pack guide, and a former actor with limited outdoor skills—he heads into the wild. The days that follow transform Ethan’s world. Hail, punishing sun, swollen rapids, and exhausting pain leave him wondering if he’s been fooled yet again: Is his father out here at all? As the situation grows increasingly dire, Ethan realizes this quest has become about more than finding his dad.



From the bestselling author of Pay It Forward comes a story of nature revealing human nature—the trickiest terrain. Navigating an unforgiving landscape, Ethan searches himself for the ability to forgive his father—if he finds him alive

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and Netgalley, for providing me with E ARC, in exchange of review. 

 ☂

The stunning cover is what drew me to LEAVING BLYTHE RIVER and the title as well, how can you not look at the cover and the title and not wonder what it’s about? The photograph on the cover will draw you in all together, all those colors and way that he’s sitting on that horse. From that photograph, I could not help but wonder what is going to happen, before I even read the summary of the book. LEAVING BLYTHE RIVER will take you on an adventure that you will never forget. Every image was so vivid that I could imagine everything that Ethan and his friends went through in order to find his father. That takes a lot of courage to do what Ethan had to do, considering his relationship with his father. There were times as they were looking for him and there was still no sign of him, there was a thought that ran through me while I was reading if he was actually out there, or if the ranger had been right. I loved fact that Ethan did not give up, till he was sure that they covered every possible area where his dad might have been.



I was not a big fan of Noah, I hated how he hurt his wife and he didn’t even looked sorry when he was caught. Most of all I didn’t like how he treated his own son, it’s no wonder that Ethan wasn’t fond of him. I hated how he treated him after Ethan rescued him, and how he didn’t even believe that Ethan was reason he was alive. In a way I understand why he didn’t, considering how Ethan was before his father went missing. I had this feeling that he wasn’t even that grateful that he had rescued him. I also had same suspicion as doctor had, about the painkillers, he seemed to be wanting a lot of them and quite often too. There was a thought in back of my throat which had me wonder if this wasn’t the first time that he had done this. I wasn’t all that surprised when I found out that it wasn’t. I was glad for one thing, that Ethan finally found the courage to tell Noah how he feels about him and everything that happened.





LEAVING BLYTHE RIVER was the first novel that I read by CATHERINE RYAN HYDE and I have heard quite few positive reviews about this author’s books and now I can see why. Catherine takes your away in adventures of her characters, and I felt as I was there along with Ethan and his friends. I could not get enough, there wasn’t a moment where I didn’t wonder what was going to happen next, if they would find his father and if they would find him alive. Most of all I was curious how all of this was going to come to end. I had feeling that Ethan change most of all after that adventure in the wilderness, it not something that anyone can do. It takes courage and determination. The novel started out a bit slow for me, but it picked up within few pages and after that I was hooked. One of best adventure stories I have read, a type of story that you can see happening in real life. To me, it felt real. After this, I can’t wait to check out rest of her books and adventures.



Beautiful. Astonishing book about adventure, courage, friendship and forgiveness.