Swimming Lessons ~ Claire Fuller
If I am honest having finished this book over a week ago I am still not sure what I want to write in this review. Whilst reading Claire Fuller’s second novel Swimming Lessons I was constantly debating back and forth on whether I actually liked this read or not. I was initially intrigued by the use of letters within this book and knew it would coincide with July’s theme. So, knowing very little about this book I took the plunge and just went for it.
This book is split between the narrative of daughter Flora and the letters in which her mother Ingrid has written over the years to her husband Gil and hidden in his neverending collection of books. Ingrid has been missing for over 12 years and now Gil is adamant he has seen her in their local town causing him to have a near-fatal accident. Now sisters, Flora and Nan, are brought back to their home town to look after their dying father. Ingrid’s letter span throughout the year of 1992 but give glimpses of her life before Gil, when she met him and life after she had her two daughters.
I found this read very hard to get into at first. The first 100 pages seemed to drag quite a bit. But once I was further into the story I was intrigued to learn more about Ingrid’s life. For me, the most interesting part of this book was by far Ingrid’s letters. They were so raw dealing with sensitive topics but written in such a beautiful way. At first, I found the dual narrative between Flora in present-day and Ingrid’s letter about the past quite jarring. Almost disrupting the flow of the read at times. Every time I was left hanging at the end of a letter I was thrown back into a chapter fo Flora’s narrative that I just wasn’t as invested in. However, by the end of the novel, I loved how Fuller tied up aspects of Ingrid’s letters in the present day. Giving us answers to some of Ingrid’s suspicions.
Overall, I think this book was tender in so many ways and just beautifully written but it was ultimately not what I expected. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing there were just some questions that I would have loved to have been answered by the end fo the book. I gave Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller a ⭐️⭐️⭐️ star review.
M🌸
