Saturday, May 31, 2014

More Psychological Study Than Mystery

The swim team mothers give up a lot to get their kids to practices and meets. They are middle-aged, unsatisfied with their lives, particularly their husbands, and living vicariously through their daughters' success. Their remedies, aside from the swim team, are affairs and consideration of divorce.

The mothers aren't the only ones watching the swim team. A serial killer, who lives near the pool, sees the young girls and remembers how much he enjoyed making the light in their eyes go out. He dogs the swim team members and eventually one is found dead.

This book is written in second person narrative style. I believe the author did this to connect the reader connect more closely to the characters. However, for me, it had the opposite effect. In the opening chapters, there were too many characters I was asked to associate with. After the book finally settled primarily on Annie, I was tired of the style. Some readers may enjoy this style, but for me it was tedious particularly since most sentences started with “This is . . .” to tell you what you were seeing.

The setting is interesting. I believe the information about the dynamics of swims teams is accurate. I found it fascinating. The area these families live in sounded idyllic, a country setting with lots of space and access to nature.

I was disappointed in the mystery. I thought it would be more of a typical mystery with an interesting background. In actuality, the focus is on the lives of the women and their dissatisfaction. It became quite tedious to be constantly in their thoughts, particularly when the thoughts were mostly negative.

I can't recommend this book, unless you want to experience a book written in second person (thankfully there aren't many of them), or if you want to experience the way middle-aged, privileged women become unhappy and dissatisfied and how they deal with it.


I reviewed this book for the Amazon Vine Program.

No comments:

Post a Comment