The Night Swim

I went into this reading pretty excited. I enjoyed The Escape Room and the summary of this one sounded spot on.

Rachel Krall, who runs a successful true crime podcast is caught up in the rape trial of Neapolis's golden boy, a future Olympic swimmer whose life has been destroyed by the allegations against him.

We've got shades of the Stanford Rape Trial all over this.

Rachel is there to give both sides of the story, because she's also there to give witness, K, the 16-year-old alleged victim. Rachel knows this could be the podcast season to take it to the next level.

But at the same time, she receives letters from Heather, who wants Rachel to get to the bottom of her sister's 25-year-old cold case. Jenny Stills drowned--that was the official word. But Heather knows it was murder and she needs Rachel's expertise to prove it.

I don't like to write this sort of thing "out loud," but I didn't like this one. And judging by other NetGalley and Goodreads reviews, it looks like I'm really in the minority here.

The Night Swim (St. Martin's Press, August of 2020) is billed as a mystery/thriller, but the bulk of it was courtroom drama. And I hate to say it, a pretty dry one. Had it not been for my feelings of obligation to review a book that had been given to me for such purposes, I would not have read past the first couple of chapters. Even still, I skimmed portions of it, including most of the podcast chapters early on. The desire to DNF this one was strong.

Here's why:

For a book with such an emotional pull, I felt no sympathy for any of the characters. I'm supposed to feel for Kelly, but she's not really a character, just a plot point. Jenny too. I loved that poor girl, deeply wanted justice for her, but what happened to her--we're beyond the realm of rape. We're into systematic, sadistic torture. And she really felt glossed over to me, with the exception of her sister trying to find out the truth. And rather than feeling sympathy for Jenny, I'm more angry that everyone let this happen to her. We're talking the 90's here, not some archaic time.

You end up hating everyone in this book. Is that its purpose? There are certainly shades of the Stanford Rape Trial here--is the real intent of the book to force you to think about rape in a visceral way? Because I hated all the men in this book. They're either perpetrators or they failed the victims in every way imaginable.

And enough with the violent, corrupt cop trope.

But the women aren't painted any better. They are either willing accomplices (and my God, who scrawls the word "slut" on the tombstone of a girl who's been tortured and killed?) or they are portrayed as weak, accommodating victims (I won't get into everything so as not to spoil some of the plot elements, but Rachel's insistence that all women everywhere live in fear at all times and we've all been at some point, at some level, sexually assaulted, really grated on me). And Heather's letters came off really strange.

All right, so I really hate being so critical of this book. I did enjoy the writing itself--Goldin is strong there, and as I said, I did enjoy Escape Room, but this one fell flat for me. I will, however, seek out her other books.

So to recommend or not? You know, I would recommend any book unless it's just trash (and those are out there). The Night Swim is not bad, it just didn't resonate with me. Reading is such a subjective, personal thing. And plenty of people loved this one already. So I'll chalk this one up to not being up my alley.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing this copy in exchange for a review.