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May 21, 2017cshamm1 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Just like the river where the story takes place in the Georgia backcountry, Deliverance starts slow and meandering. Dickey spends the first 100 pages setting the scene and foreshadowing. When the plot hits the proverbial rapids, thrilling action comes fast and furious in the form of classic conflicts of man vs. nature and man vs. man. (Although the four friends who embark on the canoe trip are in their thirties, a coming-of-age tale is also embedded between the lines.) I had a hard time putting the book down - partly because the action was so good and partly because the book has five sections but no chapters. You find yourself reading 75 pages before finding a natural stopping point to put your bookmark in. I discovered the book from Time Magazine's "100 best novels of all TIME." I enjoyed Deliverance but want to note that it's not quite on par with 5-star novels on that list, like The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, or The Grapes of Wrath, in my humble opinion.