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veelaughtland 's review for:
Summer House With Swimming Pool
by Herman Koch
3.5 stars.
I enjoyed Summer House With Swimming Pool more than The Dinner, which may be an unpopular opinion. I think this was mainly due to the fact that I didn't really have any concrete expectations going into this novel, whereas I had incredibly high expectations for The Dinner which sadly just weren't quite met. What I do love though is a good thriller-type story, with lots of dark unlikeable characters and twists and turns, which is what I got with this book.
Our narrator Marc Schlosser is a general practitioner whose clients tend to be rich and famous. One of his patients, the actor Ralph Meier, invites Marc and his family to spend time with his family at their summer house that has a swimming pool, and Marc feels like he can't say no. However, upon returning from that eventful holiday, several months later Ralph is dead and Marc is being taken to court over implied negligence.
The plot is a great one, and I thought the pacing of the story was perfect - understated, not rushed, and revealing little details here there and everywhere as the story progressed. I felt like I was in the middle of an Agatha Christie guessing game at points, which I really enjoyed, and I definitely didn't see the twist at the end coming. This book deals with some dark subjects, and could potentially be triggering, so maybe keep this in mind before you pick it up. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and although the characters were incredibly detestable for the most part, I needed to know what happened.
Having said all that, I don't think that the characters were particularly well-rounded - Marc was an interesting character, and at times I sympathised with him and at other times I thought he was a complete psychopath. However, it always did feel quite surface-level, and I would have liked a little more depth to him, and particularly to the other female characters in the book such as his wife Caroline and Ralph's wife Judith.
I also was a little unsatisfied with the ending, which didn't really feel resolved or make much sense to me. I wasn't sure how Marc dealt with his situation, and surprisingly for how well the pacing was going through the rest of the book, the ending felt a bit rushed. For that reason, I am now docking my review from 4 stars to 3.5, after a night's sleep and a little more mulling over it.
I still really enjoyed and would recommend this read though, particularly if you like dark fiction with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. This definitely fit the bill, and I'm eager to read Herman Koch's latest book Dear Mr. M.
I enjoyed Summer House With Swimming Pool more than The Dinner, which may be an unpopular opinion. I think this was mainly due to the fact that I didn't really have any concrete expectations going into this novel, whereas I had incredibly high expectations for The Dinner which sadly just weren't quite met. What I do love though is a good thriller-type story, with lots of dark unlikeable characters and twists and turns, which is what I got with this book.
Our narrator Marc Schlosser is a general practitioner whose clients tend to be rich and famous. One of his patients, the actor Ralph Meier, invites Marc and his family to spend time with his family at their summer house that has a swimming pool, and Marc feels like he can't say no. However, upon returning from that eventful holiday, several months later Ralph is dead and Marc is being taken to court over implied negligence.
The plot is a great one, and I thought the pacing of the story was perfect - understated, not rushed, and revealing little details here there and everywhere as the story progressed. I felt like I was in the middle of an Agatha Christie guessing game at points, which I really enjoyed, and I definitely didn't see the twist at the end coming. This book deals with some dark subjects, and could potentially be triggering, so maybe keep this in mind before you pick it up. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and although the characters were incredibly detestable for the most part, I needed to know what happened.
Having said all that, I don't think that the characters were particularly well-rounded - Marc was an interesting character, and at times I sympathised with him and at other times I thought he was a complete psychopath. However, it always did feel quite surface-level, and I would have liked a little more depth to him, and particularly to the other female characters in the book such as his wife Caroline and Ralph's wife Judith.
I also was a little unsatisfied with the ending, which didn't really feel resolved or make much sense to me. I wasn't sure how Marc dealt with his situation, and surprisingly for how well the pacing was going through the rest of the book, the ending felt a bit rushed. For that reason, I am now docking my review from 4 stars to 3.5, after a night's sleep and a little more mulling over it.
I still really enjoyed and would recommend this read though, particularly if you like dark fiction with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. This definitely fit the bill, and I'm eager to read Herman Koch's latest book Dear Mr. M.