I wanted to love this book more than I did. It has so much going for it – an intriguing plot, a great character list, the whole swimming thing…
However, it was just too short. None of the characters got chance to grow. I was expected to care about somebody on the basis of a funny name and a couple of paragraphs. There were almost too many events, too quickly, and not enough connection in between them, and I think it tried to do too much. it could have been three times as long, and really explored some of the ideas and some of the characters much more. It all felt a bit glib.
The real problem for me, though, was that the really interesting bit of the story happened between the last chapter and the epilogue. That was the bit I was waiting for, and it was just skipped over! Not even skipped over – left entirely to my imagination.
I think Ruth Hogan needs to slow down, take her time, and let things develop. There are dark things here that could have been explored, and a really interesting story to tell.
fantasticmetastaticme 