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A review by marieeh
The Night Swim by Megan Goldin
dark
emotional
sad
1.0
I don't know how this book has such a high rating. I really didn't like it at all. I actually almost DNF'd for the first time but since I had this book selected for a challenge, I decided to power through and skimmed the last 25%.
Of course, the content itself makes the book very depressing and difficult to read. But aside from that, I felt like the writing was not very good, the characters very surface level, and the format difficult to follow. I understand that during some of Hannah's chapters the author had to be intentionally vague in order for the twist/reveal to be shocking at the end, but it just made things confusing when characters were being mentioned but not by name. Rachel's chapters were better but still felt like we were meeting too many characters and it felt difficult to keep everything straight. It also felt extremely unrealistic that just about everyone Rachel wanted to talk to or interview agreed and just gave her that information, no (or very few) questions asked. This is supposed to be a pretty small, insulated town. Those kinds of places are usually not so open to outsiders poking around and asking questions.
The podcast chapters were the worst, in my opinion. For the most part I felt like very little new information came from them (since Rachel was gathering this information during her POV chapters and we had already heard a lot of it). It seemed like they were there as a way to pad the length. It is also very obvious that the author has listened to the Serial podcast - it seemed like she was trying to imitate the voice of that podcaster, and she really did a good job, however that voice is quite grating to me so it made those chapters annoying to read. It felt like she was trying too hard to be someone else.
Overall it was quite a sad read with no one really receiving great closure or justice.
Of course, the content itself makes the book very depressing and difficult to read. But aside from that, I felt like the writing was not very good, the characters very surface level, and the format difficult to follow. I understand that during some of Hannah's chapters the author had to be intentionally vague in order for the twist/reveal to be shocking at the end, but it just made things confusing when characters were being mentioned but not by name. Rachel's chapters were better but still felt like we were meeting too many characters and it felt difficult to keep everything straight. It also felt extremely unrealistic that just about everyone Rachel wanted to talk to or interview agreed and just gave her that information, no (or very few) questions asked. This is supposed to be a pretty small, insulated town. Those kinds of places are usually not so open to outsiders poking around and asking questions.
The podcast chapters were the worst, in my opinion. For the most part I felt like very little new information came from them (since Rachel was gathering this information during her POV chapters and we had already heard a lot of it). It seemed like they were there as a way to pad the length. It is also very obvious that the author has listened to the Serial podcast - it seemed like she was trying to imitate the voice of that podcaster, and she really did a good job, however that voice is quite grating to me so it made those chapters annoying to read. It felt like she was trying too hard to be someone else.
Overall it was quite a sad read with no one really receiving great closure or justice.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape and Sexual assault
Moderate: Cancer