Great book, minus a few chapters.

The hype was REAL for this book. So of course I picked up ready to tear it apart. I go into all reviews with a slightly ‘I’m going to prove you wrong’ attitude. I think it keeps me unbiased, but also when books wow me, they really WOW me.

The Night Swim was GREAT. … Well, parts of it were. Let me start off with the good.

The story was great. Really pulled a long and kept me guessing until the very end. The courtroom/legal talk was not overdone, but just enough where I felt like the narrator was credible. There wasn’t a lot of ‘fluff’ that bores me while reading. The story was easy to get through, which I did get through it in one day. You can just read what’s going on without any confusing points where you feel like you have to re-read portions because you get lost.

Now, the not so good… and the whole reason I dropped it a star.
The podcast portion of the chapters were SO unnecessary. Maybe if the podcast was coming from a different person, sure, I get it. They weren’t though. They were coming from the main character Rachel, which other chapters we were already fully in her head. She wasn’t saying anything to the podcast audience that she wasn’t saying to the reader. I kept waiting for a big reveal .. something that would happen in the podcast chapters that would WOW me, but it didn’t happen. It was literally a recap of what I just read. It was a waste. It a place for Goldin to give her opinion about the grey areas in rape cases. Which I’d like to say, I 100% agree with her and everything she said, my criticism isn’t what she said … NOT AT ALL. It’s why were they said there? What was the point of the podcast view chapters? I think it was distracting and fluff and … something. Either way, they should have cut them from the story.

Now that I got off my soap box – This book is still a REALLY GOOD READ and everyone should read it. It feels very ‘yes this is what happens in the real world and it’s BS’. Pick it up!