Forty-eight-year-old Cordelia has never completed anything in her life and has nothing to mark as her achievement. With support from her cousin, she swims the English Channel, hoping to finish it and prove herself. 

During the hours of swimming, Cordelia thinks about her life from her childhood, the insecurities, taunts, failures, self-sabotages, and everything she quits when it gets hard. As she swims toward the other end, Cordelia knows she can grasp her future with both hands and spend it with someone who believes in her. 

The story comes in Cordelia’s first-person POV with a few random chapters from others’ third-person POVs. 

I was tempted by the premise of a woman with past trauma taking up such a challenge to prove her worth to herself first. Naturally, her past wouldn’t be easy, and as expected, it wasn’t. 

The first-person POV does a good job of taking the readers into the MC’s mind and the mess inside it. The narrative style is a bit chaotic initially, but you’ll get used to the pattern. Though I haven’t watched the movies she mentions, I could understand their significance in her life. 

The pacing is super slow, which works in the first half. However, the second half feels stretched beyond its limit. Many times, I caught myself looking at the % and wondering when we’ll get to the endpoint. The book could have been 30-40 pages shorter. This would have made the whole concept more effective, too. 

There are many hard themes here – fat shaming, dysfunctional families, selfish mothers, toxic relationships, bulimia, body dysmorphia, self-destruction, mental illness, racism, homophobia, AIDS, bullying, generational trauma, and many more. 

This is a heavy read, and as more details are revealed, it gets heavier. That’s okay to an extent. It is good to wind the key and keep the reader in a state of suspended tension for the MC. However, over-tightening the key and repeating the pattern after it has been established works in reverse. That’s what happened in the second half. I first thought this would be a 4.5-star read, easily. 

The MC is not exactly likable. She is flawed and has a truckload of trauma to process, which she refuses to do. While the swimming does bring some growth in her arc, there isn’t a lot of progress. In a way, this is realistic. People don’t change so quickly after all. But as a reader, it doesn’t feel frustrating. Of course, there were so many instances when I wanted to hug her younger version. 

The side characters are decent. Derek/ Desi, the cousin, stands out for being the one person who stood for the MC despite everything. I really liked that guy. David was okay. He tried his best. 

We get random third-person POVs from around 45%. While Desi’s POVs were useful and David’s POV was necessary, I can’t say the same for the others. These felt more like a way to provide the missing detail. But we already have too much information! 

The book ends on a hopeful note, and we can only hope the MC won’t revert to her self-destructive ways. At least, we won’t know if she does! 

To summarize, The Swim is a slow-paced, introspective, and heavy read about coming to terms with one’s past trauma. It is a good book. 

Thank you, Rachel's Random Resources and Boldwood Books, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. 

#NetGalley