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booksuperpower 's review for:
Swimming with Fishes
by Rasheda Ashanti Malcolm
Swimming with the Fishes by Rasheda Ashanti Malcolm is a 2017 Jacaranda Books publication.
File this one under the ‘What was I thinking?’ category. I did read the blurb before I selected this book, but blurbs can often be deceiving, and I hoped there may be some plausible explanation for Ben’s actions.
But.. Nope- he’s an immature guy, who, while away from home on a business/pleasure trip, he embarks on a fateful affair, while back in London, he has a terrific wife and two beautiful daughters, who think the world of him.
Kat, the bohemian Jamaican girl he falls for, has sickle cell anemia. However, despite the dangers, she desperately wants a child. After it is predicted by a fortune teller that she will have a child by a man ‘from across the ocean’, the thought stays with her, until one day she meets Ben. She becomes certain he will be the father of her child, as it was foretold. However, it wasn’t until he had begun his seduction, that she becomes aware of his marriage.
Still, the affair continues-
While I often read dramatic novels in which adultery occasionally rears its ugly head, it is a topic that makes me very uncomfortable. Cheating, no matter what the circumstances, is a hard sell for me. But, in this case, it was presented in a manner that caused me to vehemently dislike Ben. Kat is just as guilty, of course, and should have immediately ended things no matter what. Her crisis of conscience comes entirely too late, after incredible, irrevocable damage as been done, and neither she, nor Ben, really seemed to feel any deep remorse for their actions.
So, without going into more detail- let’s just say this one didn’t impress me, and I ended up feeling quite annoyed by the entire situation.
I’m going to round the rating up a to two stars because it is partly my own fault since I read the blurb, and still chose to read it, despite the warning about cheating, and I stupidly hoped against hope for something good to come from a bad situation.
1.5 rounded up
File this one under the ‘What was I thinking?’ category. I did read the blurb before I selected this book, but blurbs can often be deceiving, and I hoped there may be some plausible explanation for Ben’s actions.
But.. Nope- he’s an immature guy, who, while away from home on a business/pleasure trip, he embarks on a fateful affair, while back in London, he has a terrific wife and two beautiful daughters, who think the world of him.
Kat, the bohemian Jamaican girl he falls for, has sickle cell anemia. However, despite the dangers, she desperately wants a child. After it is predicted by a fortune teller that she will have a child by a man ‘from across the ocean’, the thought stays with her, until one day she meets Ben. She becomes certain he will be the father of her child, as it was foretold. However, it wasn’t until he had begun his seduction, that she becomes aware of his marriage.
Still, the affair continues-
While I often read dramatic novels in which adultery occasionally rears its ugly head, it is a topic that makes me very uncomfortable. Cheating, no matter what the circumstances, is a hard sell for me. But, in this case, it was presented in a manner that caused me to vehemently dislike Ben. Kat is just as guilty, of course, and should have immediately ended things no matter what. Her crisis of conscience comes entirely too late, after incredible, irrevocable damage as been done, and neither she, nor Ben, really seemed to feel any deep remorse for their actions.
So, without going into more detail- let’s just say this one didn’t impress me, and I ended up feeling quite annoyed by the entire situation.
I’m going to round the rating up a to two stars because it is partly my own fault since I read the blurb, and still chose to read it, despite the warning about cheating, and I stupidly hoped against hope for something good to come from a bad situation.
1.5 rounded up