My Rating: 4 stars
This book was a surprisingly good read and a quick one too despite its
length (400+ pages). I will admit though
that when I first saw the title and read the summary, I wasn’t sure if it would
be my kind of book. The main reason is
because the story seemed to revolve around swimming, both for recreation and as
a sport – nothing wrong with that of course, but I tend to shy away from books
about athletics and sports because, well, I’m not “outdoorsy” and because I’m
not into sports of any kind, I’m afraid I might get bored if a book gets too
technical about the sport. Well, it
turned out that with Mary-Rose MacColl’s Swimming Home, I had nothing to worry
about. Yes, the book was about swimming
and yes, the sport played an important role in the story, with the author even
blending real life swimming history into the story (for example -- names of
real swimmers with real achievements, real swim organizations, historical facts
about swimming and the women’s movement, etc.).
However, there was much much more to the story than just swimming. MacColl actually explores a variety of
different subjects in the book, including family relationships, friendship, society
convention and prejudices, gender equality and women’s rights, coming-of-age, class
system (rich versus poor), etc. What I liked best though was the good dose of
history that the author was able to incorporate into the story, both via the setting
(1920s Europe and U.S. when aviation hadn’t really taken off yet so people took
the train or boat when travelling between countries and also no telephone
either so people wired one another via telegrams) as well as actual historical
events that had taken place (i.e.: the WSA’s fight for women’s rights in
swimming, the changes in society that were part of the aftermath of World War
I, famous achievements such as swimmer Gertrude Ederle being the first woman to
swim the English Channel in 1926, etc.).
There were even some undercurrents of a subtle mystery that ran
throughout the story, which resulted in a bit of a twist in the end that I
totally did not expect. The beauty of the way the story was written though
(yes, this book was definitely well-written), was that none of the subjects
this book dealt with were overpowering in any way -- each subject/theme was
given adequate treatment without going overboard, which I definitely appreciated.
This book also had good character development, especially with the 2
main characters : Louisa Quick, a doctor
in London who was instrumental in helping to lead the female empowerment
through education movement in her youth, and her niece Catherine Quick, a
teenager born and raised on a remote island in Australia whose affinity with
the sea and swimming was as natural as eating and breathing. To be honest, I really didn’t like Louisa
much in the beginning and some of her actions were truly appalling, but then I
realized that the way her character was written was actually very realistic. Basically, she was a good person who made
mistakes – lots of them….in other words, she was flawed just like the rest of
us. Catherine, on the other hand, was a
character I liked from the start – her carefree manner was infectious and I
enjoyed getting to accompany her as she comes-of-age after her father dies
unexpectedly and she is relocated to London to live with her aunt. I loved that Catherine grew and matured after
her various experiences in London and New York, but yet the core of who she was
never changed and her passion for swimming stayed strong throughout.
I read a few reviews of this book that said the plot was too slow,
which made it hard to get into the story.
I partially agree in that the plot was indeed slow at first and it did
take a few dozen pages for the story to really take off, but after that, I didn’t
have any problems getting into the story.
In fact, I found the story quite engaging at this point and I was so
invested in the characters that I just wanted to keep reading so I could find
out what happens to them in the end. I
also appreciated the good use of descriptions and imagery throughout the story –
again, adequate and not overpowering while staying true to the historical
context of the time period.
This is a book I would definitely recommend, especially to those who
enjoy well-written historical fiction that is also well-researched, with a
story that has depth, but is also easy to read.
One observation I would like to mention though – I noticed this book was
originally published in October 2015, but I received an ARC of this last month
with an expected publication date in June 2017.
I didn’t really look into it but I noticed the 2017 release is for the
paperback version – so I guess this is technically an “older” book from 2 years
ago that is being re-released in paperback now.
Just a random observation in case there is confusion on the release
dates for this book.
Received
ARC from Penguin Books via Penguin First-to-Read program.
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