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Cracks

3.35 of 5 stars 3.35 · rating details · 314 ratings · 59 reviews

Now a major motion picture starring Eva Green and directed by Jordan Scott

Abeautiful schoolgirl mysteriously disappears into the South African veld. Forty years later, thirteen members of the missing girl's swimming team gather at their old boarding school for a reunion, and look back to the long, dry weeks leading to Fiamma's disappearance. As teenage memories and emotion...more

Paperback, 176 pages

Published June 17th 2006 by Other Press (first published September 1st 1999)

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Jan 07, 2013 Laura Sevelis rated it 1 of 5 stars

I wished I spent the time reading something that would actually be enjoyable rather than disturbing. My main problems:

It was confusing. The author did not bother to state the setting, and I spent the first third of the book wondering where/when this is happening. Really, that is basic writing skills and I would hope a published author would be able to cover those bases instead of assuming the reader will figure it out.

I didn't like any of the characters. When the (short) book describes about 2...more I wished I spent the time reading something that would actually be enjoyable rather than disturbing. My main problems:

It was confusing. The author did not bother to state the setting, and I spent the first third of the book wondering where/when this is happening. Really, that is basic writing skills and I would hope a published author would be able to cover those bases instead of assuming the reader will figure it out.

I didn't like any of the characters. When the (short) book describes about 20 characters, I would hope at least one of them would be written well enough for me to empathize with. The only character of which is even a possibility for is Fiamma, who is the ultimate, perpetual victim (and at that, she does a great job expressing victim blaming). Does the author want me to feel sorry for her, or understand the violent gang of girls? I hate authors that think obscurity of meaning is insightful rather than lazy. Additionally the vague, almost meaningless chapters with the class reunion/dinner broke up the story in a very bad way.

Okay, does the author actually expect me to believe that 14 year olds are having naked orgies at midnight with their adult teacher?? It's creepy in the worst possible ways - not stimulating creepy (like Lord of the Flies was for me, a book that this one has been frequently compared to). When I was 14-16, I was not exploring my best friends' bodies and fantasizing about my adult teachers, and glamorizing obvious abusive, over-sexual people in power, and I doubt that many young girls were.

So in summation, if you can tolerate a book about sexual abuse and rape of children, then this is a book for you.

I will add that I took a gamble and watched the movie, it was significantly better than the book (a rare feat), and what the book should have been, i.e. fewer, but more developed characters; Fiamma's final scene was a billion times better; and there were more human/girl-like moments of kindness and insecurity rather than constant cruelty. So, the story actually has some potential. (less)

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Oct 10, 2012 Bill Kupersmith rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-secret-history

I'd never heard of the author or the book, but I saw a reference to it in a comment on Dare Me and discovered the library at the U. had a copy so took a few hours off from Jojo Moyes to read it. As my rating indicates, I thought it a pretty good but not great school story. Exept for Miss G., the swim coach, the characters were not clearly drawn, and there were too many to follow in such a short book. The victim, Fiamma, never became real enough to care about what happened to her. Miss G. seemed...more I'd never heard of the author or the book, but I saw a reference to it in a comment on Dare Me and discovered the library at the U. had a copy so took a few hours off from Jojo Moyes to read it. As my rating indicates, I thought it a pretty good but not great school story. Exept for Miss G., the swim coach, the characters were not clearly drawn, and there were too many to follow in such a short book. The victim, Fiamma, never became real enough to care about what happened to her. Miss G. seemed largely made up of bits and pieces of Jean Brodie.

Setting was excellent, a girls' boarding school in South Africa in the days of the white Nationalist govenment. It's difficult to identify even the decade in whih the story takes place. South Africa in those days was trapped in a kind of cultural time warp and some of the references (e.g. Brigitte Bardot) dated from as long ago as the '50s. But I'd guess late '60s or early '70s.

As I understood it, a "crack" is a "crush" or a "pash"; Miss G. such a bad one for the new Italian girl on the swim team that the whole team plunge (okay, it's a swim team--I couldn't resist) into a losing streak (I didn't really believe that) and the girls want her to be nice to Miss G. so they can regain their form. It wasn't clear just how far she was supposed to go. The girls' jealousy (school stories almost always feature jealousy) leads to victimisation and rough-housing that gots very out of hand. If you've read Alex Marwood's The Wicked Girls you know what could have happened to the girls if a nasty prosecutor got on their case.

I can stil remember us discussing Keats' The Eve of St. Agnes in English class at my school so long ago, and how we were to distinguish between "sensuous"--which is okay and something literature was supposed to be--and "sensual"--which was, er, not all right--we were supposed to be Catholics. Still I was surprised that that trying to act out Keats' poem could turn schoolgirls into a bunch of Maenads straight out of Euripides. (Dionysus being present in the form of fermented pineapple juice. Ugh!)

For such a short book, Cracks unfolds very slowly. I'm probably over-rating it by one star, but I was grateful to add it to my school-stores shelf.(less)

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Jun 08, 2012 C.C. Cole rated it 4 of 5 stars

I saw the film “Cracks” and out of curiosity decided to read the book and found it to be more deviated from the movie than expected. As in the above description, the setting is in South Africa and Fiamma is an Italian girl from an aristocratic family. As a teenager, she enrolls in an isolated school with other girls her age but has little in common with them, and with the aid of a favored but abusive teacher, the situation degenerates into bullying and finally tragedy.

What I found interesting is...more I saw the film “Cracks” and out of curiosity decided to read the book and found it to be more deviated from the movie than expected. As in the above description, the setting is in South Africa and Fiamma is an Italian girl from an aristocratic family. As a teenager, she enrolls in an isolated school with other girls her age but has little in common with them, and with the aid of a favored but abusive teacher, the situation degenerates into bullying and finally tragedy.

What I found interesting is how the story crosses so many layers in human culture that fulminates in the horrendous ending. Culture differences with Fiamma being from Italy, class difference with her wealthy background, and the way aristocracy sees commoners in their eyes; Fiamma wasn’t interested in the other girls, though she intended no ill will. However, being beautiful, rich, well read, and an excellent swimmer, everyone had some level of obsession with Fiamma.

The swimming teacher, Miss G, was the favorite of the girls because she made them feel special. But when she found Fiamma more special than everyone else, it drew the ire of them all, despite of her known mental instability. Miss G abused her position as teacher by manipulating the girls, abusing Fiamma and the other teachers turned a blind eye to the obvious behavior.

Last, but not least, is the ultimate breakdown of humanity by bullying kids not understanding the consequences of their actions. In the “Lord of the Flies” moment, the girls showed they were little different from animals as they degenerated into teenage bullies ganging up on a girl made to be a pariah because of jealousy; to be punished only by their own guilt as they aged. The lack of accountability to society of the crime is disturbing and opens the bare truth that young people do terrible things with few good answers regarding rule of law.

“Cracks” is a mesmerizing read, a bit laborious and devastating. The book adds many more elements than the film. Four stars!
(less)

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Sep 08, 2011 Rebecca rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is the first book I've ever read where I've liked the film better. The film's characters were more complex and well-developed, the storyline was cleaned up into a great narrative, and the dialogue was less cloying. As for the novel:

Wow, do I feel conflicted about this one. I love boarding school novels, and this one had an exceptionally lovely setting (South Africa in the 1960s, not England in the 1930s like the film,) and an interesting perspective (first person plural-- all "we") but... t...more

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Mar 20, 2010 Natalie rated it 2 of 5 stars

The book was an interesting concept. A group of eleven women reunite at their African high school many years later at the behest of the old headmistress. The school is having financial difficulties. One of the women is a character named Sheila Kohler, who is also an author. Inevitably, we learn that something very bad happened when the women were in high school: the disappearance of a girl named Fiamma.
The reader is moved back and forth through time in a vague, distant, we-point-of-view. As you...more The book was an interesting concept. A group of eleven women reunite at their African high school many years later at the behest of the old headmistress. The school is having financial difficulties. One of the women is a character named Sheila Kohler, who is also an author. Inevitably, we learn that something very bad happened when the women were in high school: the disappearance of a girl named Fiamma.
The reader is moved back and forth through time in a vague, distant, we-point-of-view. As young teens, the girls have all been picked to be on Miss G's swimming team and they each have fallen deeply in love with their rakish, androgynous, smoking-drinking-swearing young instructor. Unfortunately, this instructor falls in love with the new girl, the beautiful, blond Italian aristocrat, Fiamma. The natural teenage cruelty towards the new girl is compounded by jealousy that Fiamma, of all people, gets the affections of Miss. G. And even worse, doesn't seem to care for them. I won't give away the ending, but I can see why they made it into a movie.
The storyline is alright and sensationalistic, a sort of period piece of girls-gone-wild: cruelty, burgeoning sexuality, and a midnight feast with spiked pineapple juice and alcohol (provided by none other than Miss G). However, the writing is both contrived, stiff, and dry:
For Fiamma she could skim across the water,
As fast as can be,
For she was a prince's daughter
And miss G loved her most passionately. (48)
It's not in iambic, it barely rhymes, and isn't necessary. Kohler is obviously aiming for literary heights; the story is peppered with poems and school girl literary analysis. One of the characters is self-consciously a writer, which makes the narration so very telly instead of showy:

Naked in the moonlight, her white body shone softly. She was slimmer than most of us and lighter-boned. She carried her head high, tilted slightly to one side as though it might roll off. Because we were reading The Tempest that year, Miss Lacey called her Ariel.
We watched her opern her arms to the stars and the night, and enter the water, her glittering body all gathered together like a white, lacquered bud" (63).

This was a book that had a lot of promise, but had this weird disconnect between the wild story and the oddly restrained language. The poems sound like a fourteen-year old girl, the narration occasionally sensual, usually not. (less)

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Sep 15, 2009 Catherine Siebel rated it 1 of 5 stars

This is, hands down, among the worst books I have ever read. I have no idea what other people see in it. My gripes are many, but I'll try to limit them to things that people might find useful:

1) The narrative style -- it's written in first-person plural, which means the voice is always a "we", with no concrete sense of whom that includes. This makes is extremely difficult to conjure any sympathy for the narrator, which I imagine the reader should feel.

2) Lack of characterization -- This book is...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Lindsay Heller rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: academia, 2012

I thought this book was relatively extraordinary. Dealing with issues like youthful infatuation, the mob mentality of a group of teenagers, and the dangers of not recognizing boundaries. It was written in a sort of omniscient first person, as if by the entire group as a singular entity, which worked very well for the story.

In a lot of ways this book reminded me of another book I read recently, 'Dare Me' by Meg Abbott. In fact in reading 'Cracks' I wondered several times if perhaps it was one of...more

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Jan 29, 2013 Ines rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbtq

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 29, 2012 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm conflicted. It has a really cool sort of "Lord of the Flies" but with girls feeling. And the first person plural didn't bug me at all - in fact, I think she did a pretty masterful job of using it without overwhelming the reader with "we" throughout the book. Creepy in a wonderful way, with a shocker of an ending. But all the same, I felt the lack of something - maybe because the book is so short, and the cast of characters fairly lengthy, I felt a disconnect between myself and the story. May...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Mary rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

1.5 stars.

Cracks is one of those dream-like books that makes the reader walk around in a daze. If crafted correctly, such books can be amazing reading experiences, but unfortunately Cracks fell short. The writing with all the repeated phrases was hazy (though this perhaps enhanced the mood of the story). The way in which the book was framed as a memory being shared by the characters many years later didn't add to the story. I did enjoy the setting and the evocative descriptions. However, I quest...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Lindsey rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read this book after seeing the movie, which was beautiful and complex. The book... was a bit weird. Okay, it was really disturbing. The movie created a compelling triangle between Miss G, Di and Fiamma, which made the entire film captivating. In the movie, Di was headstrong and powerful. Miss G was complex... projecting herself as a femme fatale to the girls and a frightening bully to Fiamma... all the while really being a mentally ill shut-in. And, Fiamma was confident, kind and really just...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Jasmine rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read about this book on Rookiemag.com, which is an awesome site overflowing with good book/movie/fashion, etc. recommendations. I watched the movie and fell in love with it. It was beautiful and dark, my favorite kind of movie. I went to a bookstore soon after and asked if they had the book in stock, which was pretty funny and awkward because of the book's title.

I definitely liked the movie better than the book because the movie had more substance. Sheila Kohler wrote beautifully, describing...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Vanessa rated it 1 of 5 stars

From it's horribly cloying prose, and POV that's as dusty and damp as the climate it constantly refers to, this book was an arduous read. In the desire to paint this poetic, lyrical story we lose any real sense of who each character is, making it almost impossible to care for any of them. And the constant reference to the homoerotic obsessions between the girls was baffling to me, not just due to the time in which the book is set (40's? 50's?) but because it's painted to seem as though this is a...more

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Sep 23, 2009 Jennifer Higgins rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read about this one in Vanity Fair. It is being made into a movie starring Eva Green (the sexy French woman from one of the recent Bond movies).

I found this little 165-pager really moving. I liked the use of the collective "we" as the narrator. The book was strangely moving for me. Even though these girls were so together and acted as a group in many ways, they were all hurting so much by being apart from their families. They all want the love and attention of Miss G so badly as some sort of r...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Yves Fey rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read the book because I loved the movie, which I actually preferred. I thought it had a stronger dramatic structure, but that was by focusing more on a couple of the characters. The book wanted to encompass the group of girls in culpability. I gave it 4 starts because I love poetic writing, and the descriptions were gorgeous and the story and characters well done. It didn't go up any higher because it did start to get repetitive. I think some of the repeated descriptive phrases were deliberate...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Miranda Williams rated it 2 of 5 stars

I cannot think of a single time I have ever said this, but in this instance you should probably just watch the movie. The book is about 160 pages with an interesting concept but Kohler offers little to no depth to the many characters and their actions. Characters are portrayed as two dimensional beings with one or two quirks in their personalities taking over the whole, their motives are barely skimmed over and when the final act that shapes the novel takes place the violent shift in the already...more

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Feb 29, 2012 Roz Morris rated it 4 of 5 stars

A slim and claustrophobic tale of lost innocence in an isolated girls' school. The prose perhaps doesn't live up to the gush on the back cover, and the story could have been edited a little more tightly because a few scenes tread the same ground, but nevertheless it's a well-told, compelling tale. Plot arises very satisfyingly out of characters who do things they cannot help, which makes everything worse etc etc. At its climax it is Lord of the Flies in a girls' school (though perhaps without Go...more

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Aug 26, 2010 Suna rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction

The euphemisms really got on my tits, they sounded so cuntish.

They were both insufferably insipid - boosie - and uselessly inaccurate -winkie-.
Even though they were meant to be expressions used by young girls, they ring implausible.
Unless I'm unaware that these words are commonly used by small children in white South African culture of that time. In which case they're still bloody annoying.

The story is beautifully crafted, well-set up and suspenseful.
But I hated it in so many ways.

Those littl...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Daisy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: south-africa, school-boarding

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 27, 2007 Akemi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Disturbing, concise, unusual first person plural POV.

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Aug 18, 2012 Caitlin Hazell rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm giving this book only 4 stars because I think it needs to go with the film version to be complete. Perhaps I'll change it to 5 because the story was amazing. Yes 5 stars for Cracks. It reminded me about growing up, being a teenage girl, the power you can feel, the isolation. I loved the obsessive feelings the girls felt towards their teacher Miss G, and the way she was driven mad by not being loved back by Fiamma. The film I think, is a must watch for anyone who has read the book, and not ju...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Joséphine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature

Cracks was a short and somewhat disturbing read. It is able to excite the reader but lacking in depth at the same time. It does not bore you with endless chapters nor does it puzzle you with complex characters. Even if described by Sheila Kohler in another way, you feel like the girls develop no notable personality and they differentiate from each other only at first sight. It's like all the girls on the swimming team seem to feel about things the same way. I was able to relate to them only thro...more

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Aug 15, 2011 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Hmm, this was good... but odd!!! Cracks is the tale of a group of young teenage girls at a South African boarding school back in the 60's. The weather is hot and dry, the school is isolated, and the girls don't have much in the way of strict supervision. The South African scenery was well-described, and I could absolutely feel the brutal summer heat radiating off the pages. Thirteen of the girls are chosen by Miss G to be on the swim team, including beautiful new-girl Fiamma, who keeps her dista...more

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May 10, 2013 flowairblue rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I watched the movie, then I read the book. There are many variations, indeed, and they both have their own merits. The book's are that they are told in a more reserved way, and they are told in a third-person pov. It has a touch of objective sadness and sublteness throughout the first few chapters, and it is not until the last chapter that things reaches the cruel and heart-wrenching climax. And abruptly yet reasonably, things fall silent in the end.

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Jul 10, 2012 Rebecca rated it 2 of 5 stars

This was an unsettling book. It delves into the darker side of teenage rivalries and jealousies within the setting of a girls boarding school in South Africa. It also paints a disturbing portrayal of the negative influence teachers can have over students. I didn't think it was particularly well written and found it a rather unpleasant book. Sorry Lisa - I suggest you DON'T get this one out!

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Nov 14, 2010 Vanessa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-crime

There was something very whimsical about the whole book. It was intimate and detailed, and it kept me turning the pages. However, it left me more than a little unsatisfied at the end. Everything I wanted to know was kept from me, and emphasis was placed on things I didn't really care for. I was really looking forward to reading this book too. The idea is fascinating, but the execution just didn't meet my expectations.

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Dec 19, 2009 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a really good book for a rainy day or an insomnia-plagued late night. It's short and easy to read, yet it's extremely provocative. I'm excited to see the movie adaptation that's coming out soon (particularly since the setting is relocated to Ireland). As for the three stars, I think the prose was repetitive and slightly infantile, even for fourteen-year-old girls.

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Mar 10, 2011 Issa rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: other-fiction

I picked up this book because I saw a trailer for the movie version that is coming out and it looked interesting. In the future I should probably read more about a book, especially some reviews. I did not like this book. I finished it because I can't leave a book unfinished but it was difficult. The plural first person voice of the book was annoying. I didn't connect with any of the characters because none of them were really developed. Additionally, the writing style had the feel of a cliched a...more

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Aug 31, 2009 Julie added it

Yuk. double yuk, not worth the $ buck at the used book store. It's about an all girls school in South Africa, a child molester teacher, girls who want to be molested by her and the one who gets molested by her who doesn't want it, jealous feelings and death. Nothing, not one bit of this do I ever want to fill my head with again!

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Aug 02, 2011 Sadaf rated it 2 of 5 stars

When they're not swimming, the members of the team amuse themselves by torturing new girls and taking turns fainting in chapel, until Fiamma Coronna throws everything off balance. Very different from the books I have read so far. It was haunting and I liked the use of the collective "we" as the narrator. But is definitely not striking.

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About Sheila Kohler

Sheila Kohler was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, the younger of two girls. Upon matriculation at 17 from Saint Andrews, with a distinction in history (1958), she left the country for Europe. She lived for 15 years in Paris, where she married, did her undergraduate degree in literature at the Sorbonne, and a graduate degree in psychology at the Institut Catholique. After raising her three girl...more

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Quotes from Cracks

“It's stupid to ban books that tell you the truth about life.” — 7 people liked it

“If you find the truth within you, it will save you. If you ignore it, it will destroy you.” — 5 people liked it

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