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Title: Night Swim

Author: Jessica Keener

Narrator: Rachel Botchan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-15-12

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Night Swim, the gripping debut novel from Jessica Keener, was heralded as the arrival of a strong, distinct and fully evolved new voice by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan. In 1970s Boston, the glossy veneer of 16-year-old Sarah Kunitzs wealthy family is starting to show cracks. Her parents constant fighting and her mothers prescription pill abuse drive Sarah into two romantic relationships with unforeseen consequences. With grief fresh in her heart, Sarah wonders if she or her family will ever love again.

Critic Reviews:

"This memorable debut will strike a universal chord with readers." (Booklist)

"Keener's observations perfectly capture a certain kind of 1970s adolescence." (The Boston Globe)

"This earnest debut centers on Sarah as she tunnels through new depths of loneliness...moving." (The New York Times)

Members Reviews:

disappointing

This book was on sale and nearly every review I read, even the negative ones, praised its lovely prose. I thought I'd give it a try. It had been a long time since I'd read a book like this.

But it frustrated me. The prose was lovely; it was true. Keener has a talent for weaving a unique and evocative phrase. But I feel as if the story and its themes didn't match the depth of her writing skill.

Keener drives almost absent-mindedly through this tale of a teenage girl dealing with the grief of her mother's death. That backbone to the story seems to get lost in crushes, drug use, sex, bigotry, and music. Time skips along, huge chunks of life go missing, gulped away as the reader is introduced to a new series of moments that Keener has deemed noteworthy. Don't get me wrong, the author vividly describes all of these experiences with the kind of detail and craft most authors skip out on. But they just seem loose, barely connected by the wisps of grief courting the edges of the story.

I felt like the protagonist, Sarah, wasn't going anywhere. And, although I'm sure Sarah felt that way (especially because Keener liked to build paragraphs out of the questions wheeling through Sarah's mind), I didn't want to feel that way as a reader. Meanwhile, as aimless as Sarah seemed, I sometimes felt like Keener was just going through a recipe for "litfic novel." Here were the allusions to pop culture. Here were the repeating symbols (tunnels and funnels came up a lot). Here were the finely-crafted sentences describing the emotional heartbeats of a life-changing moment. After a while I got frustrated and just wanted the book to be over so I could move on to something that might have a few more surprises, a few imperfections, and not feel so contrived.

But I felt like even if her other hadn't gotten in the accidents

The book felt disjointed. I kept waiting for the story to circle back to the "present day" for Sarah, but it never really did. I never felt I could relate to Sarah and her plight. I empathized for her and the loss of her mother at such a crucial time in her life. Every girl should have a mother to help her through those messy and confusing teen years. But I felt like even if her other hadn't gotten in the accidents, she never really would have been there for her. In true New England WASP fashion, her mother was detached and distant.