MixedThe Observer (UK)Has the aspirations of an epic; a saga of births, deaths and everything in between happening in cycles. The plot turns on climate catastrophes, diseases and accidents, punctuating the novel’s 10 sections, each calamity tragic, riveting and pivotal to the story ... But in looking at the past through a wide lens, the book papers over problematic practices of the time ... The feelgood feels a bit too good after a point ... The sweeping intergenerational scope that makes this novel such a feat is also its greatest risk, given its 715-page length. Consistency and momentum flag ... The author struggles to keep up the lyricism in the second half ... That said, The Covenant of Water is an important book for its efforts in documenting times and places most readers would be too young to have witnessed.
