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Rating: 
Summary: Impressive First Time Out
Review: "Swimming" is without a doubt an impressive debut from a talented writer. It is not an entirely successful debut, but it interesting even in its flaws, and that is more than I can say for most novels I read. The tale is kind of an emotional whodunit, or perhaps a whydonit. The first part of the story takes place in 1987 when college student Aaron Silver brings his girlfriend Sunanne to meet his family in rural New Hampshire. The family is a bit odd, and there are unexplained and perhaps inexplicable tensions between Aaron and his wild brother, Jack, and soon sparks begin to fly between Jack and Suzanne. Much emotional mayhem ensues until the visit climaxes in a tragedy that the book cover describes but I will not, since I wished I hadn't known it when I was reading. The novel then picks up ten years later, focusing on Lila, the younger sister, who is obsessed with the events of that night and begins stalking Suzanne in an effort to learn the truth about her brothers. Hershon's writing is at its most successful when she is conveying the very real emotional confusion people feel at what seem like key moments in their life. "Swimming" seems to me especially effective at demonstrating the intense importance of these private feelings and the sometimes horrific consequences of privileging irrational passion over logical responsibility. In the heat of the moment, the author wants to argue, the selfish and thoughtless decisions we make, radiate outward into our lives and the lives of others. The book is also wonderful when it examines the confluence of memory and sadness, demonstrating how we process our own bad decisions, what we chose to remember, forget and to fabricate. On the other hand, "Swimming," splashes around in the pond a bit too loudly and clumsily at times. The opening prologue is both unnecessary and so badly written I cannot even believe the same person composed those few pages and the book that follows. In the main body of "Swimming," the writing is never bad or clunky, but it is sometimes burdened by too much attention to craft. The flap copy tells us that Hershon received her MFA from Columbia University, and this book reads to me like MFA fiction. Obviously some people like that sort of thing, but I find her endless and belabored details of clothes, rooms, smells, plants, and anything else on which she happens to draw a bead ultimately kind of tedious and rarely in service of the story she wants to tell. If anything, the resonance of her tale and her characters gets lots sometimes in her descriptions. This book could have been a bit slimmer, and if Hershon had reserved her truly impressive talents for elements of the story with emotional consequences, it would have been a sleeker and far more poignant volume. As it is, it reveals an unquestionably talented author whose next work I would most certainly seek out.
Rating:
Summary: Page turner
Review: I just gave birth to a boy on July 15th. The importance of this is that I picked up "Swimming" after the baby was born and was able to finish it in one week. That's incredible considering all of the demands of a newborn. But I found that I couldn't put the book down from the inciting incident of the two brothers and girlfriend to the ending. Joanna Hershon does a phenomenal job developing her characters. The plot and the story line hooked me as well. Her writing is poetic and there is some wonderful imagery. I believed in the story and I believed the characters. Only toward the end did I have a hard time believing how the characters meet up again (I don't want to give anything away). All in all, I didn't want to say good-bye to these characters.
Rating:
Summary: Page turner
Review: I just gave birth to a boy on July 15th. The importance of this is that I picked up "Swimming" after the baby was born and was able to finish it in one week. That's incredible considering all of the demands of a newborn. But I found that I couldn't put the book down from the inciting incident of the two brothers and girlfriend to the ending. Joanna Hershon does a phenomenal job developing her characters. The plot and the story line hooked me as well. Her writing is poetic and there is some wonderful imagery. I believed in the story and I believed the characters. Only toward the end did I have a hard time believing how the characters meet up again (I don't want to give anything away). All in all, I didn't want to say good-bye to these characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing special, beach blanket read
Review: I lived in New Hampshire for four years, so I thought it would be fun to read a book set there. The story was ok...not great, not terrible; it was entertaining, but certainly not prize winning fiction. It's the story of two brothers, one girlfriend, an accident?, and how a little sister responds to it, both immediately and later in her life. On the jacket, it's described as, "exquisitely sexual," which leaves me puzzled and bemused. Sure, okay, if that's what it takes to sell the book, put it on the jacket. Perhaps somebody else will find it more arousing than I did.
Rating: 
Summary: Great, great book!!! I highly recommend!
Review: I picked up "Swimming" on a whim and took it on a beach vacation with me. Needless to say, I finished it in two days. I was drawn in from the beginning to this story of jealousy, intimacy, passion, obsession and pain that lingers. I, like others, was very attracted and interested in the characters and their lives. Read this book and you won't be sorry!!!
Rating:
Summary: Not a classic "page turner", but emotionally moving
Review: Perhaps I define "page turner" differently than other readers. I chose to read this book based on the glowing reviews, each of which referred to it in one way or another as a "page turner."
I disagree, but I still found this book to be well worth reading.
It was not until the last 1/3 of the book that I was hooked into sitting down for a good long uninterrupted read. The first 2/3 of the book alternated between too much description (which equals boredom to me) and interest in what would happen with the characters. I must say that every time I teetered on the edge of giving up on the book (despite the fact that it is obviously well written), Hershon would throw something out there just enough to get my attention.
Part of the problem is that I started the book expecting lots and lots of suspense and intrigue. What Hershon gives you instead is lots and lots of poetic description and slow-moving character development. Which is not necessarily bad, just not what I expected.
Once I recovered from my disappointment that the book was not going to be the page turner I craved, I began to emerse into Hershon's world. By the end of the book, I was moved.
My advice to readers looking for the classic page turner is to ignore the majority of the blurbs on the book itself (soft cover version). What you should expect from this book is a slow, poetic, and beautiful portrayal of loss and the bonds between a brother and sister.
If you have ever experienced distance from a family member after a tragedy, you will certainly relate to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: This One Sinks Like a Rock!
Review: This book had me hooked right from the start. The writing stlye is at a good pace, and the characters are easy to picture. The flow of the book is great, and you will not want to put it down once see where it's going. I can totally see this book becoming a great movie. Read it and you'll see what I mean.
Rating:
Summary: Very Dramatic Story of a Family
Review: This was a book I just couldn't put down. It is the story of one family. The parents [60's hippy types] are not a major player in the novel but provide an important insight into the background of Aaron, Jack and Lila and how they were raised. When the boys were just teenagers and their sister only 9 years old a terrible tragedy happened to the family that threw them all into a tailspin. Lila, ten years later goes in search for her one missing brother and tries to piece together what happened. She witnessed in part the happening, but was so young and it has definitely distorted her life and how she lives it. She is in some ways mentally effected by the whole thing and has a very strange behavior pattern that at times was disturbing to read. I'm glad I did cintinue reading though because it was worth it. This author deals with a very terrible tragedy with such depth and drama. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Debut Novel!
Review: What an incredible debut novel from writer Joanna Hershon. I couldn't put this book down and was actually a little sad when I finished it. The poetic verbiage and sensory details turn this story into a masterpiece. A coming-of-age story and love story rolled into one, this work presents us with the complexities of the human mind, the inner workings of a restless heart, and the beauty of ordinary things. The characters were believable and tangible, with multi-facted personalities and intriguing personal strengths and flaws. This book is entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time; capturing your imagination and pulling you into the character's world.
Rating:
Summary: This One Sinks Like a Rock!
Review: Yikes--where do I begin? There was not one well-developed character in this entire book! The plot begins promising enough, but the characters are so blah and undefined that I ended up not caring at all about what happened to them. Ms. Hershon spends page after page on mind-numbingly dull details that add absolutely nothing to the plot or characters. I saved this book to read on my vacation and was very disappointed. Read The Lake of Dead Languages instead--it is a thousand times better!
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