The Cove
by Ron Rash
- Percentage of approved critics who have given this book a positive review.
Critic Rating
64%
Critic Reviews: 28
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- User rating from iDreamBooks & iTunes
Reader Rating
80%
Reader Ratings: 182
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Synopsis
Trade Paperback New York Times Bestselling Author "Ron Rash is a writer of both the darkly beautiful and the sadly true. The Cove solidifies his reputation as one of our very finest novelists."-Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls "Set during World War I, The Cove is a novel that speaks intimately to today's politics. Beautifully written, tough, raw, uncompromising, entirely new. Ron Rash is a writer's writer who writes for... more
About Ron Rash
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- All Critics: 28
- Positive: 21
- Negative: 7
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Open Letters Monthly | 15 May 2012
The ways in which world events and rural town life weave together, their convergences and consequences, makes for a good parable. But I think more subtly drawn characters, with messier edges, would have taken The Cove beyond a moral tale and a simple love story.
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Tina's Book Reviews | 7 May 2012
Everything is chilly in this book, letters upon letters almost rain off the page, its story will leave you emotionally rattled and the chill seeped into your bones.
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USA Today | 10 Oct 2012
The Cove is nevertheless a powerful novel, with some of the mysterious moral weight of Carson McCullers, along with a musical voice that belongs to Rash alone.
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West Metro Mommy | 26 Apr 2012
It would have been very easy for Rash to take the easy way out on this book and make this into a simple love story. Instead, he carries the plot out to the very last page in a very satisfying, abeit heart-breaking, end.
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Chalk the Sun | 19 May 2012
Despite some of weaker character development, this reader is delighted to have discovered a writer who can craft a powerful story with captivating language.
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Kirkus Reviews | 15 Mar 2012
Lonely young woman meets mysterious stranger. What might have been trite and formulaic is anything but in Rash’s fifth novel, a dark tale of Appalachian superstition and jingoism so good it gives you chills.
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The Guardian | 16 Mar 2012
The greatest pleasure in it for me was the clear, rather mannered cadence of the prose and the author's fine ear for the speech rhythms of the rural South.
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Life in Review | 23 Apr 2012
I very highly recommend this book! The writing is breathtakingly beautiful. The characters are vivid and real.
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The Mookse and the Gripes | 1 May 2012
Still, in the end I was disappointed that even the threat to their happiness was predictably plotted. I didn’t particularly enjoy the book.
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Bookfoolery and Babble | 3 May 2012
the ending definitely did surprise me. It just wasn't a surprise I liked.
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Creative Loafing | 29 May 2012
Rash's writing here is, as usual, simple, incisive and beautiful. Quick phrases and deft descriptions manage to illuminate a whole culture, its thoughts and ways of life. Yes, he's that good.
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Peeking Between the Pages | 9 Apr 2012
It is a story that builds upon itself in the most interesting way and keeps your attention throughout.
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The Independent | 25 Mar 2012
This is as patient, understated, precise and controlled a narrative as you'll read anywhere.
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The New York Times | 1 Apr 2012
Resolution, when it arrives, is swift, brutal and unexpected. A breathless sequence of events lead the book to its devastating final sentence.
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Layers of Thought | 22 May 2012
This was a romantic, tragic page-turning novel for me. It was easy to read, lyrical, and heartrending.
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Tulsa World | 29 Apr 2012
This is a tale of treachery, superstition and fear, but Rash tells it well, bringing Laurel, Hank, Walter and the cowardly Chauncey to vivid life.
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The Picky Girl | 17 Apr 2012
The Cove is a novel of hope and dread, ignorance and truth, prejudice and acceptance, evocative of place and time.
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The Washington Post | 3 Apr 2012
Only at the very end do these pages ignite, and suddenly we’re racing through a conflagration of violence that no one seems able to control except Rash.
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Deseret News | 6 May 2012
"The Cove" is a beautifully written book that uses heartfelt characters to describe the difficult life of a lonely, misunderstood young woman.
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Star Tribune | 6 Apr 2012
Still, when all is said and done, it's hard not to wonder if the best plan for the cove is one we learn about in the prologue of the book set in the 1950s, years after Laurel, Hank and Walter are gone: Flood it, turn it into a lake and trap all of its stories inside.
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Lit and Life | 24 Apr 2012
The Cove is a book I couldn't put down and was sorry to see end.
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Oregon Live | 28 Apr 2012
"The Cove" is never less than a pleasure to read because of Rash's rhythmic, sharply observed prose
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Wales Arts Review
While Rash’s ending offers us a small comfort or two, the real afterglow is in the realisation of having read a work of absolute stone-cold genius.
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Shelf Awareness | 17 Apr 2012
That strong sense of place might cause some to pigeonhole Ron Rash as a "regional" writer, but with The Cove, he leaves the strong impression he's only begun to mine a rich lode of memory and imagination his region has delivered to him
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Beth Fish Reads | 20 Apr 2012
A truly great novel is more than believable characters, a vivid setting, and a well-crafted plot.
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Salon | 28 Apr 2012
Indeed, Rash’s material detail, depiction of work and evocation of place — of nature, woods and stream, the play of light and the oppressive dark of the monstrous cliff — are truly splendid.
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Schleicher Spin | 1 May 2012
The Cove is a quick read. It’s a good read, albeit a bit shallower than we are used to from Mr. Rash.
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The Star | 14 Apr 2012
There are indeed greater forces controlling the destinies of Chauncey and Walter and Laurel. But as Shakespearean as his tendencies may be, Rash makes us well aware that there is nothing otherworldly about the influences that shape the fortunes.
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