The Night Swim

Book Review: The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

I’ve read a couple of Goldin’s other books but, easily, this is the most popular of her titles. I can see why. But…

TBH, I think I’ve decided I’m not a fan of this type of book. There’s quite a few other contemporary thrillers it reminds me of and I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of those either.

The storyline features true crime podcaster Rachel who is covering a rape trial in a small coastal [fictional, I presume] town in North Carolina. Once in the town, Rachel starts getting notes and emails from a woman, Hannah, who claims the rape and murder of her sister was covered up 25 years previous. Obviously Rachel is intrigued and the reader is, therefore, following both the trial and Hannah’s tragic tale.

I’m not sure why Goldin has set all her books in the US (does she live there? have dual citizenship? yes, I’m too lazy to look this up). Like a couple of other recent Aussie authors’ offerings, the US setting gives the book a generic/write by numbers feel. If I were her publisher, I would recommend an Aussie setting may be a good choice somewhere along the line to add a touch of the unique.

However, the biggest letdown of the book was Hannah’s reveal near the end. I mean, this is a major plot point, that Hannah is so mysterious and Rachel has continued to just miss her or move past her in a public space, and then her identity is revealed and… I mean, what was all that build up for really? (I’m pretty sure if you’ve read this, you’ll know what I mean.)

Although I don’t think this book is worth the hype, to give it credit, I did finish it rather fast and it managed to keep my attention throughout. I think, maybe, it also had tough competition with me only having just finished The Unbelieved not long back which had similar themes and plotline, meaning I couldn’t help but make comparisons with The Unbelieved coming out on top every time.

Maybe 3 out of 5

The Escape Room

Book Review: The Escape Room by Megan Goldin

I read Girl on Keller’s Way last year which was Goldin’s debut novel and, although it was not perfect, it wasn’t at all bad and showed a lot of potential. As such, I was pretty pumped to read The Escape Room which is Goldin’s most popular novel to date. But… Yes, I’m back to adding one of my world famous ‘buts’.*

What a disappointment. The only way I would describe this book is bad. I probably only persisted and finished it off because Goldin is an Aussie writer and I was reading it for a challenge.

Not that I would know Goldin was Aussie from this book. It’s set in the US and I had a lot of trouble relating to any of the characters’ lives. Okay, I get that we were probably not supposed to like many of the characters but I disliked them all intensely. Do people really live so utterly consumed by wealth? And even if they do, did Goldin have to describe their wealth, how they earned it and how they spent it, over and over and over? I think I would have got the point after a couple of paragraphs. I didn’t need literally chapters and chapters of descriptions of expensive clothes and cars and accessories. Shades of Crazy Rich Asians without the quirkiness (in other words — yawnfest).

Despite the title telling me the plot should revolve around the relatively new and unique idea of an escape room, it’s pretty much false marketing. The escape room isn’t really an escape room at all. The escape room is instead an elevator inside which four of the characters are trapped. There are some clues the characters try and decipher but don’t expect, as a reader, to play along. They’re only relevant to the characters and, in the end, solving them leads to nothing.

The stuck in the elevator plotline does become the classic isolated with no hope of rescue trope, causing this group of characters to go crazy (with alarming speed – their wealth apparently made them all weak princesses) and turn on each other. As none of the characters had any redeeming features to start with, as the story progressed further I couldn’t care less who would live or die and who was controlling the escape room and/or who was doing the killing. (By the way, this isn’t a spoiler, the book starts with the elevator opening and a lot of blood. This opening, I must say, is probably the only worthy scene of the entire book.)

Even the heroine, Sara, is not a character I cared for. Just like all the others, she is seduced pretty quickly into becoming focused on money. A couple of offers from the banking investment firm she is hired into and she’ll work any hours and do anything. Her personal relationships are all based on money. Her status in life is based on money. Again, do people on Wall Street in the US really carry on like this?

As I said, there is nothing really original about any of the plot. And some of the books it reminded me of are quite old now, so Goldin definitely didn’t offer up anything new or fresh. (If you’re wondering, I especially thought the book was similar to Grisham’s The Firm and Sheldon’s If Tomorrow Comes.) Only Grisham and Sheldon probably didn’t resort to the dreaded info dump (that I can remember).

Yes, the info dump is huge. The entire last section, in fact, is just one long info dump of characters telling the reader who did what and why. There are numerous ways Goldin could have shown, instead of telling, us these revelations (I’ll use that term loosely, as everything was as obvious as the nose on my face) better than the way she did.

I’m now questioning if I even want to try Goldin’s third book, The Night Swim.

Um.. 1 ½ out of 5? 2 at a pinch.

*Okay, me adding a but to my reviews is probably not world famous, I’ll concede this point

The Girl in Kellers Way

Book Review: The Girl in Kellers Way by Megan Goldin

Aussie Megan Goldin has found a fair bit of popularity with her later books, The Escape Room and The Night Swim, but I found The Girl in Keller’s Way to be a pretty solid debut.

Okay, it’s not perfect. It follows too many of the ‘rules’ of this genre for my liking. That is, we get two different narrators, possible victim/suspect Julie West and detective Mel Carter; one of the narrators may or may not be reliable; and one of the narrators is obsessed with sex. (Is there anyone in real life who truly thinks the only indicator of a happy marriage is constant wild sex? Ack!)

My other big beef is the title. Why, oh why, do publishers insist on copying each other’s titles (and covers) ad nauseam. We do not need any more ‘girls’ in titles. Neither Mel or Julie are girls. Nor is the victim found in Keller’s Way.

But I should get onto the good points. Goldin’s writing style was excellent. The whole book was really easy to read and the narrative flowed well. Everything made some sort of sense and there was no overkill when it came to flashbacks or other corny techniques. The leads were not carbon copies of each other either, which can often be an issue when multiple narrators are used. And there are enough twists, turns and cliffhangers along the way to keep the reader turning pages.

Even though Goldin is Australian, she set the book in the US. I was torn on this point. I wasn’t sure why she didn’t just set it in Aus, apart from our strict gun control. The setting, in the end, didn’t influence the story much at all.

Although it didn’t have the Gone Girl type bombshell, I quite enjoyed the ending. It was unexpected and made me pause and question some plot conflicts and their resolutions. Oh, and Goldin never had to resort to my most-loathed book fail – the info dump at the end. So, bonus points for that!

Overall, I would recommend the book, especially for fans of the genre. It’s just as good, if not better, than a lot of the most popular books in the domestic noir/psychological thriller arena. It certainly never put me off Goldin and I will definitely pick up her other two titles soon.

4 out of 5