Fiction | Book Chatter

It All Comes Down to This
By Therese Anne Fowler
St. Martin’s Press, 9781250278074, June 2022, 352pp.

The Short of It:

My expectations for this one were high but it fell short for me.

The Rest of It:

Meet the Geller sisters: Beck, Claire, and Sophie, a trio of strong-minded women whose pragmatic, widowed mother, Marti, will be dying soon and taking her secrets with her. Marti has ensured that her modest estate is easy for her family to deal with once she’s gone––including a provision that the family’s summer cottage on Mount Desert Island, Maine, must be sold, the proceeds split equally between the three girls.

You’ve probably read a story like this one before. A family home, filled with memories suddenly goes up for sale and there is the last “hurrah” of all the family members getting together to say goodbye to it. I was eagerly looking forward to this one because I loved Fowler’s A Good Neighborhood. But this one left a lot to be desired.

For one, I didn’t care for any of the characters. I found it hard to relate to any of them. As sisters, they didn’t seem to be all that close and honestly, there was little to be sentimental about in regards to the house. However, I liked it enough to give it a chance and although the three sisters didn’t work for me, some of their individual stories were interesting enough to keep me reading. I expected it to be quite compelling given my love for her previous book but it just landed too softly for me. Plus, I finished the book and then a week later couldn’t remember if I had read the ending so read it again. It left my brain that quickly.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Swimmers
By Julie Otsuka
Knopf, 9780593321331, February 2022, 192pp.

The Short of It:

This slim novel packs a punch.

The Rest of It:

When the story opens, we meet the swimmers. A group of people who frequent the community pool for laps, sometimes social interaction, but mostly as a form of therapy. The busyness of their lives comes to a halt once they submerge themselves in the water. All the noise of the world is drowned out and they are left with their thoughts as trivial as some of them may be.

As their routines unfold daily, Otsuka takes note of each detail. Almost in a checklist format. We learn about the rules of the pool and how some of the swimmers follow them religiously, and some not so much but never enough to lose their pool privileges because it’s clear that each of them value that time in the water.

The second half of the story focuses on a startling flaw that appears in the form of a crack, along the bottom of the pool. What does it mean? Is it just cosmetic? Will it grow larger? Does it represent a larger issue that could jeopardize their cherished swim time? As with most changes in routine, the appearance of this crack does not go over well.

In fact, we see how it affects these swimmers, specifically Alice who is suffering from dementia. Her time in the pool, and the regular interaction with the other swimmers is what holds her memory together but as soon as that is disrupted, her memory begins to slip away even more quickly. Her daughter relays to the reader her mother’s time in the Japanese internment camp and how bits of those memories float around untethered only to disappear all together.

The Swimmers is a little sad but also wonderful. Otsuka brings importance to every minute detail.

Source: Purchased
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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