“Into the River of Angels” by George R. Wolf

• 09/08/2023
• no comments

Into the River of Angels

George R. Wolf
The Sager Group LLC
ISBN: 978-1958861028
Reviewed by Robert Leon Davis for Reader Views (08/2023)

“Into the River of Angels,” authored by George R. Wolfe, is a teenager’s odd and unorthodox search for self. It’s a novel based on the character Sam Hawkins, a 17-year-old with a highly inquisitive outlook on life. Living between his father’s and mother’s homes, as they go through a stressful divorce, starts the beginning of his distortion of life.

He begins to question almost everything nature brutally reveals to him, including his parents’ separation. With only two friends, he’s a lonely teen staring at the realities of life and has a need to create or discover some zest in his existence. Reading books, video games, and normal teenage activities isn’t good enough. His desire is something different, even if it could mean danger! 

He resides in the San Fernando Valley, a beautiful area of California near the infamous Los Angeles River. A 51-mile body of swiftly moving water, the LA River is inherently dangerous. His adventure? To ride a canoe down the river, along with his friends, experiencing something that had not been done by anyone else would give him that zest he missed. But this journey was filled with many dangers! Did he live? Was he seriously injured? Did he find his purpose?

“Into the River of Angels,” by George R. Wolfe, is sort of what almost all teens, especially males, experience when caught in no-man’s-land.  Seventeen years old is not quite a man, and not quite a teenager. The divorce of his parents, along with being essentially a loner, and all the other issues of life in the teen years can be very difficult to interpret. Nevertheless, he, like all of us, must find a way to enter adulthood.

The storyline itself is well written, and I love the way the author wrote it without using high-end or big words but in basic, stylish English. This made me connect with Sam as being very real as I read the novel. Sam’s constant complaining, and some of his rash decisions were believable and helped me read voraciously without desiring to put the book down! In the end, without divulging any of the ending mysteries and juicy parts, I believe this book would be especially good for teenagers and young adults to read. I think it could give them an edge in life, possibly preventing them from suffering as Sam did.