'The Snake had touched me, and in some way, I now belonged to the river'.

Bridget's childhood was as dramatic and filled with lurking danger as the white water she came to love as a young adult. Born to two parents who were themselves a product of abusive parents, her mother finally lives her physically violent father, giving Bridget the chance to live in a peaceful eddy with a loving stepfather. However, it was only a temporary stop before she had to navigate more tumultuous years. By chance, Bridget finds herself, her calling and her centre, on the river. It becomes a passion that sees her guiding rafts on wild rivers around the world. Her experiences help to synthesise her troubled life and learn to forgive herself and her family.

It's always difficult to rate someone's life, their personal notes laid bare for everyone to read. I really enjoyed reading about Bridget's rafting adventures and the people she met along the way, as well as her reconciliation with her marred childhood and flawed family. Although reading about her childhood trauma is necessary, it wasn't as easy. Overall though I enjoyed Bridget's story and her courage in not only facing wild, untamed rapids but also the courage to face her upbringing.

'Over the years, I had spend quite a lot of time ruminating about what my family had not given me, overlooking what I'd inherited as my birthright: the ability to transform suffering, rise up, and survive'.

A woman’s memoir detailing her traumatic relationships and how rivers helped her find herself, her place in the world, and forgiveness.

2.5 ⭐️ I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I had hoped I would, but I appreciate what it must have taken for the author to document and share her trauma and I applaud her for breaking the cycle of abuse with her own children. While I did finish, I was never engaged while reading and found myself not really wanting to come back to it. If you’re a sensitive reader, please check trigger warnings to make sure this is the right fit for you.

My thanks to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for a complimentary advance copy of this eBook, out 6/3/2025.

Memoirs can be hit or miss for me. Seeing this compared to Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and Educated really scared me as I hated those two books.
I enjoyed this book. Back it seems like a thousand years ago I was a weekend river traveler. I just loved it. The author talking about how touching the river, showing respect and hearing the river talk to her just warmed up my hateful little heart.

I hate all that she went through with in her family life but she admitted that it made her tough as hell. And she is.

Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.

Sometimes I really struggle to rate memoirs, and that is the case with Bridget Crocker's memoir. I admire her for what she's overcome in her life, and she is an excellent writer. I loved her stories of guiding river rafting adventures, both in the states and in Southern Africa. Her chapters about her time working on the Zambezi River were utterly compelling. This is absolutely just a me thing, but I just wasn't that interested in the trauma of her childhood and what she had to do to overcome it, despite being impressed with how far she came by the end of the book. This is the story of her childhood and early years of adulthood, and then in an epilogue Crocker quickly catches the reader up on the next several decades, where she got therapy, improved her family relationships, quit her addictions, and raised a happy family. Overall, I think I should have looked more closely at the content of the book before requesting it. In looking at the title and cover and only giving the blurb a quick skim, I thought I was getting an adventure memoir, not an overcoming trauma memoir. I can absolutely respect what she's done as well as her beliefs that the various rivers talk to her in a spiritual way, but I was here for the adventures, which were really well written and very satisfying to read. Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for a digital review copy.

The is an amazing memoir by a world-class whitewater rafting guide.

Bridget Crocker’s early life was pleasant, though on the edge of poverty. She lived on the Snake River in a trailer park with her mom, stepfather, and baby brother. Suddenly all of this was torn asunder when her mom had an inexplicable personality shift. The only thing that provided consistency was the river.

In escaping to the river, she found whitewater rafting to be the one thing that allowed her to eventually overcome years of abuse of every type and her own dependencies.

This is a memoir that gifts the reader a full range of wonderful possibilities for their own life, and the descriptions of her rafting adventures are an incredible bonus.

A triumphant debut memoir by a world-class whitewater raft guide and a Class V writer. Bridget Crocker came to whitewater from a childhood that began in a trailer park in California, then floundered its way to the banks of the Snake River in Wyoming, where divorce, drugs, abuse, parental neglect, and sexual assault rough-and-tumbled a resourceful, driven, and attuned young woman. In her search for empathy, Crocker found solace in water, particularly the rivers coursing through places she felt most at home. As a fellow Kern River boater who's had the privilege of reading Crocker's work in the past, I poured through this memoir, recognizing many of the actual rapids as well as conjuring composites of her fellow guides. If you like stories of outdoor adventure and inspiration as described by a strong woman questing and finding her self-reliance, then this is the ticket. This is your jam.

[Thanks Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

This is a biographical story that starts out dark and finishes full of hope. A young girl is raised by ‘trailer trash’ parents who abuse each other and and their child. The local river fascinates her and becomes her salvation, as she learns become a white water rafter guide in the United States and Africa, and develops healthy relationships with friends and her future husband. The details about white water rafting and the culture in Africa with the whites and black guides are eye-opening.. I hope we see more books by the author.

There is a lot to like about this book. Despite the horrific traumas she experienced as a child, Bridget Crocker is able to endure, to find strength, and to overcome in tremendous ways. Her resilience is remarkable, and her connection to nature and the way she describes it throughout this book is very lovely. The whitewater rafting adventures were anxiety-inducing and well-written, and I definitely felt the thrill and the danger of the rapids in her descriptions. I was also so angered by the behaviors of the adults in this story - all of them without exception. Bridget Crocker succeeded in writing an emotional and powerful memoir.

There were also parts of this book that felt rushed or incomplete, that I would have liked the author to delve into more deeply. For example, there were many times in the story where she was upset by injustice or mistreatment, but allowed herself to remain powerless, feeling that she was only powerful when she was on the river. Her relationship with Steve was also an area that seemed like it could have been examined more in the epilogue. And the story arc with her father also felt rushed, I would have liked to hear more about the work they did to repair their relationship.

A well written memoir combined with adventure writing. Crocker finds a salve for the trauma and abuse of her childhood on rivers around the world. While not diminishing what she experienced from her parents and others, it is her recounting of the white water she tackled that lifts this and makes it unique. I was fascinated with the rivers, the mechanics of rafting, and life on the water. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A very good read.

“The River’s Daughter” is a powerful memoir about a woman embracing adventure to overcome adversity. Bridget Crocker’s life was spent on numerous rivers guiding rafting trips, from which she learned how to survive and recover from childhood trauma. Throughout her life she carried many external and internal scars from her mother’s neglect and her father’s anger. She had to let go of her past, which kept her imprisoned and unable to move forward. It took her many years to understand that releasing that anger would help her heal, both personally and in her relationships with others, particularly her mother and father.

The book was beautifully written, although I struggled with many of the descriptions about the white-water rapids and how the raft had to navigate them. It’s obvious she had a turbulent upbringing and found solace and peace on the water; however, she also turned to alcohol and drugs at the slightest adversity or sign of anxiety. Her descriptions about Zambia and Zimbabwe, and the differences between the two countries, was enlightening.

It’s amazing she found the forgiveness to reconcile with her father and end the cycle of abuse with her own children. The biggest problem I had with the book is that it is extremely detailed until the end, when it seems to rush through the next twenty years in the epilogue. On one page she writes about marrying her old boyfriend when she was twenty-five. Then several pages later she talks about her estrangement from her mother when she was in her thirties and forties. Then all the sudden she is married again with children and graduated college. Maybe it would not have added to the story, but I would have liked to learn more about her later life and what happened to her mother.

I recommend this memoir to people who like adventure and travel stories as well as to those who like reading how people overcome tremendous obstacles and childhood trauma. More importantly, how to learn to forgive those who caused tremendous pain.

There’s something uniquely difficult about critiquing a memoir that bravely recounts childhood trauma, especially when it centers experiences of abuse and survival. And in many ways, this book is commendable for the raw vulnerability it offers. The author’s prose is lyrical and often striking, and I appreciated how she draws on the natural world—especially rivers—as a quiet undercurrent to her story. Her love of the water and the solace it brings is palpable, and moments of introspection tied to place or landscape were among the most powerful in the book.

That said, I sometimes struggled with the way certain events were framed. The moral lines in the story felt a bit too clean, with the author often portrayed as the only one seeing clearly in moments of conflict. This left me wishing for more nuance, especially in the treatment of her father’s redemption and the unsettling dynamic with Steve. I also found myself wanting more “showing” than “telling”—more room to feel the emotional weight rather than being instructed on how to receive it. And while the rivers she travels hold symbolic meaning, I had hoped for a deeper exploration of river ecology to accompany the memoir’s emotional journey. Still, this book offered moments of resonance and reflection that stayed with me long after I finished it.

Wow, this was a really good memoir! There was some backstory about her shitty parents, but not an excess of navel gazing. Her parents seemed to have remained shitty, for the most part throughout the story, but she didn't dwell on it overly much. I really loved the whitewater stories - it was like reading a thriller and waiting for something bad to happen, which it sometimes did. What a ride!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to read and review.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the DRC of #TheRiversDaughter. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

This heartbreaking memoir of a difficult childhood combined with excellent adventure/travel writing is a really great read. Crocker writes honestly about her turbulent upbringing - physical & sexual abuse, drinking and drugs. But she finds peace on the water and the resilience she learned surviving helps her become a world-class whitewater rafting guide. From Wyoming and California to Zambia and back, Crocker writes about finding the strength that helped her reconcile with her family and end the cycle of abuse and trauma.

Really well done!

What an incredible life captured in this memoir. I thought Crocker did a great job in pacing, bringing the reader around the world in her outdoor leadership experiences, and tackling heavy subjects. Her resilience in the challenges she faced early in life is astonishing. What I found particularly captivating is the way she described her relationship with nature - water specifically; she learned about the spaces she occupied and let the water guide her. Her descriptions of the nuances of racism in the outdoor recreation business were very informative as well.
That being said, that was the craziest epilogue I have ever read and I would absolutely read another memoir of hers covering any and everything she mentioned in the epilogue.

Bridget had a few good years with a decent stepfather. They were poor and lived in a trailer, but they had the outdoors to nourish them in a way material goods could not. But when her mother went through some kind of psychological change and fell for an eco-warrior, Bridget’s existence became unsafe. From a young age her mother was supplying her drugs and alcohol. Moving in with her biological father in California meant having money, but it also meant constant physical and emotional beatings. She had to look out for herself from a young age, and she did that by becoming a world-class white water rafting guide. This career took her all over the world in a role that not many women held, at least at the time. As you can imagine, the memoir is perilous on and off the river.
NetGalley provided an advance copy of this book, which RELEASES JUNE 3, 2025.

Thanks to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for the ARC of this book on exchange for an honest review. I was hoping to enjoy this story more than I did. Although it was well written I just could not get into the story at all and found myself reading just to finish it. I seem to be in the minority on my review so maybe it just was not for me at this current time. Just not for me but maybe worth a try if you’re into memoirs and whitewater rafting.

This memoir takes a profound look into the author's childhood and the challenges she faced growing up in an abusive environment. Crocker grapples with creating meaningful connections, largely influenced by her parents' turbulent marriage and eventual divorce.

Wanting to escape from her environment, Bridget signs up to lead tours in the Zambian river in Africa. While there Bridget comes into her own more and discovers how to put herself and her needs first.

The River's Daughter brings in themes of abuse, independence, resiliency and forgiveness all through one woman's personal story. It will have a profound effect on how you view survivors of personal circumstance.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

As I have said before, I love books, fiction and nonfiction, that take place in the wilderness or just the outdoors in general. This book had that and I was delighted and learned a lot. This writer, Bridget Crocker, grew up with neglect and abuse as a child. The only thing that seemed to make her happy was the river behind her trailer park. Because of this, she grew up to become a river guide learning on white water rapids. There are several classes of rapids and I learned a lot about this and also how to row properly on the water to make the raft turn and how to run the rapids. She guided the Snake River behind her trailer park in Wyoming and also Zambia, which I thought was so interesting. She healed herself working as a river guide. If you have ever gone white water rafting or have thought about doing it, I think you would enjoy this book. She lists the content warnings at the beginning of the book, so read those first before you decide if this book is for you.

This read was ok it didn’t grab my attention as much as I would like but I would give this author another try

When reading this powerful story I had to remind myself it was a true story, a memoir of Bridget Crocker’s life, and not just a fictional tale. This is a powerful story of survival, it has heavy themes (there’s messages at start of book), but it’s about courage, strength and resilience, and the power the river had in helping shape her life. There’s a large amount of the story based around Bridget’s whitewater rafting and being a water guide, and, although something I’d never take part in, I throughly enjoyed the whole story. I found this story very moving and recommend it to anyone who enjoys a memoir