Please note that I received this via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

 

So "Swimming for Sunlight." I went back and forth on this one. The main character is Katie Ellis who divorces her husband and takes her rescue dog Bark back to Florida to stay with her maternal grandmother, Nan. Katie gives up everything that she is entitled to so her husband doesn't get joint custody of the dog. So she arrives with paper bags filled with clothes and I kid you not when your grandmother quizzes her about not getting cardboard boxes she explains her dog, Bark, doesn't like them. I should have known what I was getting into from that point. 

 

Katie was a freaking martyr and didn't even see it. She was also causing her dog severe anxiety due to her actions. I did feel sorry for her. She was there when her father died and she pulled him from the lake they were swimming at. Cue her mother dumping her to live with her grandmother while she followed men all over the world and stopped communicating with her. So there is sympathy for Katie, but I got annoyed at how she dealt with everything. She tells her grandmother Nan that Bark can't be walked since he is so scared so they dance around the living room for exercise. Yeah my face is your face right now. Katie also can't handle going to funerals since it reminds her of her father so she's been largely absent with her childhood best friend who lost two grandparents and her grandmother's best friend who also lost a spouse. Everyone just excuses it and it drives me up the wall. And then we finally get into the one who got away and once again it was 100 percent her fault and I just hard sighed when we finally read about what tore them apart.

 

That said, Katie didn't deserve the break up of her marriage due to her husband's cheating and though she seems to have found a sense of closure in the end I just rolled my eyes.

Larkin doesn't spend much time developing secondary characters past a few people such as Nan, Bunny, Mo, Mr. Issac and Luca. Other characters drop in and drop out with Katie getting "insight" into them. Not enough to stop being a drama queen though. I get she has abandonment issues but good grief. Luca was the most patient person in the world. I really wish there had been more discussion between them when it finally comes out what caused them to end back in college. It felt like such a flimsy BS excuse that if I were Luca I would have been done at that moment. For me, how can you trust that you won't do something else the person won't like and they won't push you away for years. 

That said though I couldn't put this book down. I loved reading about how Katie came to love sewing and show she got into costume work. Her working at Mr. Issac's shop was highlight and her doing research on how to create her grandmother and the other "mermaids" outfits was interesting. I got so curious about underwater costume work and makeup after reading this book. 

 

The writing starts off slow at first and the flow was a bit off at the beginning. I think that's because as readers we are reading Katie tell her story in her own way and for the most part she is trying to hide things from herself and has to lie to herself that her dog is fully dependent on her so she has reasons to say no to doing anything.

The setting of Florida didn't feel like a proper setting though. I think because most of the book takes place at Katie's grandmother's home, Mo's house and Mr. Issac's shop. We read about it, but I can't recall if Larkin described the smell of the ocean being nearby, the humidity, etc. This could have taken place anywhere. 

The ending ends on a hopeful note and you do root for Katie in the end. Being held hostage to all of the bad things that can happen all the time sounds exhausting.

So this may end up being my review for this book. I don't know yet. I do know that I have some weird viral thing that has resulted in me coughing since Thursday and led to me not being able to sleep since then too since anytime I tried to lay down I coughed.

 

So "Swimming for Sunlight." I went back and forth on this one. The main character is Katie Ellis who divorces her husband and takes her rescue dog Bark back to Florida to stay with her maternal grandmother, Nan. Katie gives up everything that she is entitled to so her husband doesn't get joint custody of the dog. So she arrives with paper bags filled with clothes and I kid you not when your grandmother quizzes her about not getting cardboard boxes she explains her dog, Bark, doesn't like them. I should have known what I was getting into from that point. 

 

Katie was a freaking martyr and didn't even see it. She was also causing her dog severe anxiety due to her actions. I did feel sorry for her. She was there when her father died and she pulled him from the lake they were swimming at. Cue her mother dumping her to live with her grandmother while she followed men all over the world and stopped communicating with her. So there is sympathy for Katie, but I got annoyed at how she dealt with everything. She tells her grandmother Nan that Bark can't be walked since he is so scared so they dance around the living room for exercise. Yeah my face is your face right now. Katie also can't handle going to funerals since it reminds her of her father so she's been largely absent with her childhood best friend who lost two grandparents and her grandmother's best friend who also lost a spouse. Everyone just excuses it and it drives me up the wall. And then we finally get into the one who got away and once again it was 100 percent her fault and I just hard sighed when we finally read about what tore them apart.

 

That said, Katie didn't deserve the break up of her marriage due to her husband's cheating and though she seems to have found a sense of closure in the end I just rolled my eyes.

Larkin doesn't spend much time developing secondary characters past a few people such as Nan, Bunny, Mo, Mr. Issac and Luca. Other characters drop in and drop out with Katie getting "insight" into them. Not enough to stop being a drama queen though. I get she has abandonment issues but good grief. Luca was the most patient person in the world. I really wish there had been more discussion between them when it finally comes out what caused them to end back in college. It felt like such a flimsy BS excuse that if I were Luca I would have been done at that moment. For me, how can you trust that you won't do something else the person won't like and they won't push you away for years. 

That said though I couldn't put this book down. I loved reading about how Katie came to love sewing and show she got into costume work. Her working at Mr. Issac's shop was highlight and her doing research on how to create her grandmother and the other "mermaids" outfits was interesting. I got so curious about underwater costume work and makeup after reading this book. 

 

The writing starts off slow at first and the flow was a bit off at the beginning. I think that's because as readers we are reading Katie tell her story in her own way and for the most part she is trying to hide things from herself and has to lie to herself that her dog is fully dependent on her so she has reasons to say no to doing anything.

The setting of Florida didn't feel like a proper setting though. I think because most of the book takes place at Katie's grandmother's home, Mo's house and Mr. Issac's shop. We read about it, but I can't recall if Larkin described the smell of the ocean being nearby, the humidity, etc. This could have taken place anywhere. 

The ending ends on a hopeful note and you do root for Katie in the end. Being held hostage to all of the bad things that can happen all the time sounds exhausting. 

I did enjoy reading this book and found it hard to put down after Joe came into the picture. However, some of it seems extreme and absurd, especially after the climax came about. I'm really glad I'm not rich, and I don't have rich people problems.

I think readers can relate to Van's problem of loving someone who doesn't love you, or having that person admit she or he feels something for you a little too late. However, I'm not sure if most people can relate to Van. She's not a bad person, but she's the kind of drunk freshman girl I'd see in the dorms and just shake my head at. She does grow towards the end of the book, and there is at least a little bit of redemption.

Wypożyczyłam książkę z biblioteki z powodu cudnej okładki.
Faktycznie książkę czyta się lekko. Na samym początku myślałam, że ów owczarek będzie głównym bohaterem. Ale niestety nie.
Ale i tak fajnie się czytało. Bohaterka czasami była denerwująca, ale były też dobre momenty nawet humorystyczne. Wywołały u mnie uśmiech na twarzy.
Jest to lekka i niewymagająca lektura na pochmurne dni. W sumie nie żałuję, że ją przeczytałam. Miło spędziłam czas przy lekturze.

Jenny Shaw has a pretty normal life. She has a job that she is good at with the prospect of a promotion in the air. She has (she’s quite sure) a soon to be fiancé, a business trip to get through and then, a romantic vacation to take. Sometimes, though, things just do not go as smoothly as they are planned. Stepping onto the elevator after checking into her hotel she hears someone call what she thinks is her name. She turns expecting to see someone she knows and is quickly swept into a case of mistaken identity. She could rectify the mistake with a few words, but finds she cannot. She would like to be someone else for a little while and besides who would it hurt?

This book was fun. The characters were likable. Ms. Larkin manages to convince her reader that a group of seemingly intelligent people could truly convince themselves Jenny was their long-lost friend from high school. Jenny displays just the right amount of guilt and angst about her deception that the reader does not hate her for her deception. That angst is smoothly transferred to the reader. This made it a page-turner despite the fact at in the world of chick-lit, the outcome was a little predictable.