Rachel Beanland
I received this book, with gratitude, as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for honest feedback.
So this one was interesting for me. I did say honest feedback, right? I’m going to have to do this one with some spoilers- I’ll warn you first…The first third of this book was super tough to get through. It felt choppy and the characters were not doing much of anything for me. I was feeling a bit like I was being spoon fed a story and not experiencing the story myself.
In fact, there is a scene in the beginning when the title character, Florence, is at the beach with her young niece who is asking her to play “mermaids”- a fun sort of swimming game in the ocean. And Florence is staring sort of wistfully off in the distance. The way that sentence is written is loaded- as a reader, I expected that look to be revealing of something deeper as the book progressed. It was apparently nothing at all.
I don’t like my attention being hooked onto something for no return.
The other scene that truly bothers me is (semi-spoiler) at Florence’s Funeral, Esther (Florence’s mother) has a bit of a skirmish with Stuart- in fact, she's outright, inexplicably RUDE to the boy/ man who encouraged Florence’s swimming and acted as her coach. The scene again, left me with – well, what on earth was the point of that? I still don’t even understand what was trying to be conveyed- was the author trying to hit home that Stuart was not Jewish? That he was somehow at fault for what happened to Florence? This goes unresolved as Stuart appears later in the book in scenes with Florence’s father and they are friendly, so if we are meant to understand Esther here, we’ve got to create some backstory or dive into her mind.
Now here’s what really bothered me- (spoiler, though really, it’s explained in the description of the book) Florence drowns in a swimming accident. She is supposed to be a world class swimmer- training to go off and swim the English Channel. And she drowns right there, on a regular old beach day off the coast of Atlantic City. No real explanation at all for us. We are expected to believe this with nothing more to it- the entire book hinges on this - it is the TITLE! Then, because Florence has a sister, who is pregnant, and who has given birth to a baby who died shortly after childbirth in the past, everyone is complicit in not telling the sister that Florence is dead. And I mean everyone- like the WHOLE TOWN and all of the hospital workers where the sister is living for the remainder of her pregnancy and her SEVEN YEAR OLD daughter goes along with it. Um, no.
Also…. And yes, I may be on a rant here…. the first baby likely died, we found out, because the baby daddy thought it would be a great idea to take his then very pregnant wife to the bumper cars and ram his car into her.
(Yes, yes, it took place in the 1930’s but, were people complete morons back then? No, no way.)
Ok one more negative and then, I promise I get to the positive, and yes there was positive!
There is a line- and I am warning you, this one is super racy…it reads, “It was three years before Isaac stopped withdrawing when he climaxed.” Um, what?!? Is this a science textbook? Please please can you explain this thought- which I understand the need for in the context of the story, in a slightly less sterile way?
Ok, so then there is the good part- the last 2/3rd of the book.
I felt like a different author wrote it.
The story shifted and the characters started to get developed and I had something to sink into, and I enjoyed it very much- really, I know from the earlier parts of this review you wouldn’t think so, but it definitely redeemed itself, despite the bumper cars thing.
The story line with Anna and Isaac were interesting and lent something much needed into the story. I really enjoyed getting to know more about Stuart, and even little Gussie. But I did have a serious issue with Anna/ Florence relationship. Without spoiling anything- it did nothing other than make me question Anna’s intentions later in the book, and though I do believe it was meant to show Florence’s true nature, that could have been done with Anna being shocked, or disturbed and then I think the secondary storyline of hers and Stuarts would have felt more believable. Readers want to root for characters they like, they don’t like get behind characters whose motives are questioned.
So here’s the REAL PROBLEM I had though-at the end of the book, an author’s note appears. And it is in that note that we find out that the events of this book are based on real life events and people in the author’s family. Wellllll now I just felt terrible for my opinion about the story line in the beginning, because here’s an author just trying to retell her true family history- and who am I to judge that? But I found it interesting that she did mention that the reason Florence died was thought to be caused by an underlying heart condition. Please- just tell the readers that- give us some closure before the author’s note and let us buy in a little more to the story.
The first third of this story was a two-star story for me and the last two thirds was a 3.5 leaning toward a 4 with a couple of minor changes.
#NetGalley #Florenceadlerswimsforever #bookstagram #books #booklover #book #bookworm #bookish #reading #bookstagrammer #instabook #bibliophile #booknerd #bookaddict #booksofinstagram #bookaholic #b #read #bookphotography #bookshelf #booklove #readersofinstagram #instabooks #bookblogger #igreads #booksbooksbooks #booklovers #reader #love #bookcommunity #bookreview #bhfyp
Comments