Rate this book

Pływanie (2011)

by Nicola Keegan(Favorite Author)

3.49 of 5 Votes: 6

languge

English

genre

Young Adult Fiction

publisher

W.A.B.

review 1: This book is not about swimming, the sport. It is about swimming around in your own head as you deal with undiagnosed mental health issues. Sure, there are a handful of pool scenes. But nothing that resembles anything written by someone who has swam. Most of the book is comprised of Catholic guilt scenes and general reverberations from an education by nuns, followed by the revelation in the back half that she may suffer from some of the same mental health issues as her mother and together, but on separate continents they both begin to get better. I read the second half of this book not being able to tell what was happening, what was a memory, what was in her head, what the sequence of events were, and how much of this was the author trying to mess with us to prove a point.... more My point is, this book has nothing to offer people looking to read about swimmers. Do yourself a favour and read "The Bone Cage" by Angie Abdou instead.
review 2: Okay, so it's a book about a (fictional) Olympic gold medalist in swimming. Hmmm. Snooze. Sports bio? Blech. But not so fast... the thing that some crankypants on goodreads don't like--that the book is not really all "about" swimming--is what I like about it best. Swimming forms an exquisite backdrop for what is really the story of being Philomena, seeing the world as she sees it. There are healthy doses of family drama here. I'd recommend it for anyone who liked Jenny Downham's Before I Die or for people (like me) who can listen to the sad Sulfjan Stevens cancer song ("Casimir Pulaski Day") over and over for a good cry.I could cite the Kirkus·review's final line to sum up my overall reaction: "Flags a little at the finish line, but nonetheless well worth plunging into." But when you put it like that... well, it makes it sound like a book a lot less worth reading than it really is. So I'll go with the final line of the Publishers Weekly review, which is what convinced me to check out the book in the first place: "It's worth reading for the prose alone."It's true that the novel doesn't really end, it sort of just sputters to a stop. Okay, that's not awesome. I wish Keegan and her editor had worked it over one more time to find the right final note, the right final movement.BUT let's remember how hard endings are and focus on all the (many!) things this book gets right. I mean, the speaker Philomena is brutally honest and funny in a way I only dream of. less

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