The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns a Death, and America's Dilemma

Ambar A.
December 11, 2008

The Other Side of the River
A Story of Two Towns a Death, and America's Dilemma

The book I was reading was The Other Side of the River by Alex Kotlowitz. This book was about Alex Kotlowitz and his journey to find out what happened to a teenage boy named Eric McGinnis. He was found in the Saint Joseph River in between two towns and Alex Kotlowitz wants to find out how Eric ended up in the river.
I liked this book but at the same time I didn’t like it. I really liked the authors writing style because he would move from case to case and they all related to the Eric McGinnis Case. I also liked this book because once I read it had a lot of information so you could tell that the author really did his research. I also liked this book because it was based on a true story so you get to learn something about history while you read this book. I also like that the author interviewed some people and really got into the case.
The things that I didn’t like about the book are that sometimes I would get confused because sometimes the author went on a completely different topic and I would get confused. I also didn’t like that if sometimes the author stayed on a topic to long, then it would get boring and I wasn’t interested anymore. I also didn’t like that the author would use words that nobody uses in their everyday language.
I give this book a 2 ½ out of five because I didn’t like the book that much because I would easily get bored. I think that this book isn’t for people 11 and under because this book has inappropriate language for kids that young. Also it has adult situations that they won’t understand.
I would recommend this book to readers who like mystery and drama. I would also recommend this book to people who like to learn about things that happened that you haven’t even heard about before. I would also recommend this book to people who would want to be a detective and solve cases someday in their life because this book is a great example of what to do. I don’t recommend this book to people who easily get confused on what the author is talking about/ referring to.