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The River

Gary Paulsen
Buy on Amazon Kindle
contemporary fiction survival fiction past tense third limited POV ~115 pp
features extracted 2026-04-12

Vibe

tense desperate melancholic

A contemporary fiction. Expect minimal worldbuilding, dense, literary prose, epic scope. Plot-driven and deeply introspective. Ends on an unresolved note. Contains notable violence.

Style Fingerprint

Prose density 75
sparsedense
Pacing 40
slow burnpropulsive
Emotional tone 30
darkhopeful
Worldbuilding 10
minimalmaximal
Char / plot 85
character-drivenplot-driven
Interiority 80
externalintrospective
Ending 10
unresolvedcathartic
Stakes 90
intimateepic

Content

Violence 60%
noneextreme
Sexual content 10%
noneexplicit
Humor 20%
seriouscomedic
Romance 10%
nonecentral

Structure & Cast

Structure
Word count28,835
Page count~115 pp
Prologue
Epilogue
Tensepast
Cast & World
POVthird limited

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