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Dec 14, 2011

Erk rated it:

Go Swimming.

There are certain books that make me into S-L-O-W Man. Stories that I don't want to end: Unbearable Lightness of Being. The Shipping News. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I don my goggles, stick my head in a bucket of amber and suspend time- trying to read as slowly as humanly possible. Add Swimming to this sticky note.

Ms. Keegan does a great job drawing the reader into her pool, letting us swim, and sink, with her heroine, Philomena, a.k.a. Pip.

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1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2011

Katie rated it:

I wanted to rate this a "4" but I started liking it less towards the end. As Philomena (the lead character) got more mentally unstable, the text got more stream-of-consciousness-y and it started to lose my interest. I see where the author was going with that, but I just really wasn't following it as well (perhaps I refused to be dragged down into madness with her!) and I lost track of which parts were real and which were imaginary. That part started to seem like work and not pleasure r More...

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Jun 20, 2011

Ashley rated it:

Okay, so it's a book about a (fictional) Olympic gold medalist in swimming. Hmmm. Snooze. Sports bio? Blech. But not so fast... the thing that some crankypants on goodreads don't like--that the book is not really all "about" swimming--is what I like about it best. Swimming forms an exquisite backdrop for what is really the story of being Philomena, seeing the world as she sees it. There are healthy doses of family drama here. I'd recommend it for anyone who liked Jenny Downham's Before More...

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Jun 09, 2010

Denise rated it:

3.0 out of 5 stars Live to swim and swim to live..., June 1, 2009

This review is from: Swimming (Hardcover)

I finished this book a couple of days ago and had to give it some thought and reflection before I commented on it.

This novel, about a girl who lives to swim and swims to live, has a lot of ambition but somehow it falls short and sort of left me depressed. It's an incredibly complex tale of a young girl's sad coming of age and her relentless pursuit of O More...

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Jul 21, 2009

Amy rated it:

At various points my opinion of "Swimming" traversed a roller-coaster veering from one to five stars: down, up, and down again. "Swimming" defies easy categorization, and is certainly not a typical sports bio. The swimming itself, and especially the Olympic experiences, are not the focal point of the book by any means. That is important to know, because I think that for most readers, their enjoyment will be in part based on how well the book matches their expectations.
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Jul 05, 2009

Angela rated it:

In a stunning three-hundred page novel, Keegan is able to pull together the struggles of a world-class, Olympic champion swimmer. From deaths of family members at a young age, the sufferings of a Christian school, the stressful training brought on by an elite coach, Philomena Ash kicks through her life like a dolphin accidentally born human. She is charismatic, spirited, and intelligent, bound for great successes regardless of her families seemingly unsolvable problems. As a no-name Kansan, Pip, More...

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Mar 03, 2011

Bellarie rated it:

Also eigentlich wollte ich mit dem Buch längst fertig sein. Aber schon nach kurzer Zeit stellte sich heraus, dass es nicht möglich ist, mal eben ein paar Seiten zu lesen. Wenn man das Buch zur Hand nimmt, muss man voll dabei sein, um alles zu erfassen.
Der Klappentext verrät zu diesem Buch:
"Boo, Mena, Phil oder Pip – Philomena hat eine Menge Namen und keinen leichten Stand: Ins Haus eines Fledermausforschers hineingeboren zu werden ist das eine. Dort – und noch dazu in Kansas – i More...

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Jul 16, 2010

Bethany rated it:

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Mar 06, 2010

Karen rated it:

I was disappointed in this book. I feel like the description on the book cover was misleading. As the title suggests, the book is about a girl that becomes an Olympic champion in swimming. It follows her life from like 8 years old to 28 years old. The book cover made it sound like it was very much about the swimming world and competing and the Olympic experience. But that was hardly covered. It was more just about her thoughts and feelings and relationships -- swimming was such a back stor More...

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Aug 12, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

I first read about "Swimming" in Poets and Writers magazine. Nicola Keegan was featured in the magazine's "First-Fiction Annual.” I read the opening paragraphs there and was intrigued by the voice of the character Philomena (a.ka. Pip). This was a good thing, as the whole of “Swimming” seems to take place within Pip’s head. But more on that later.

“Swimming” chronicles Pip’s rise as a swimming superstar-- over the course of the book she makes it to three Olympics and p More...

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Dec 18, 2009

Rreminger rated it:

After reading the first chapter, I thought the book had a lot of promise. There was one great description after another of Pip as a baby.

"I have 7 chins varying in size and volume; crevasses things get stuck in that my mother has to excavate carefully after each bath."

"She leans towards me with a cotton ball dipped in baby oil, two purple sandbags of fatigue carefully holding down her eyes, and I karate-kick the open bottle out of her hand."

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Jul 28, 2010

Rachel rated it:

Nicola Keegan writes Swimming exactly the way a person thinks when he or she is logging long hours in the pool. If you've ever swam competitively, you'll know what I'm talking about. Every thought, every memory, every conversation plus the taste of chlorine blends together in an internal dialogue that no one else can respond to.

This book is written entirely in that stream of consciousness style, which isn't one I typically like, but it works well here. I'm giving this book 3 stars o More...

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Feb 11, 2010

Joe rated it:

This beautiful book evoked every emotion I have, but what I loved most was the author's genius for getting deeply into her heroine's character. She presented Mena's point of view from a variety of unique angles, all with an authentic feel, beginning with the very first chapter when I saw the world through an infant's eyes.

While on one level, Swimming can be summarized as the rise and fall of an Olympic champion, it's really a story about a dysfunctional girl from a dysfunctional fam More...

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Aug 07, 2009

Robin rated it:

After reading a number of positive reviews about this novel, I was sure to order it for my library's collection. And I was excited to get it and start reading it. But right from the beginning, I was having trouble getting into it. Maybe I had spent the summer reading teen novels and easier to understand fiction but I was having trouble getting through this novel of just over 300 pages. When I looked at the book again and I saw a piece of a review that mentioned the author as being the imaginary More...

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Sep 08, 2009

Marci rated it:

I read a review of this book in Time magazine, and just knew I had to read it! It it told from the point of view of Philomena, an Olympic gold-medalist in swimming, at one point the fastest female swimmer in the world. It isn't just from her point of view, the entire book is told from her internal monologue (stream-of-consciousness, if I remember right from English class?)

The book follows her from her early years, to her young adulthood and rise as a world-class competitive swimmer More...

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Jul 04, 2009

Fredsky rated it:

I loved this book and couldn't put it down for a lot of pages and chapters. The narrator is wonderful, a tough, smart, skinny 6"2" Olympic champion, and we watch her get there from a family full of loss. I loved training with her, and I really loved the contrast between the way she describes herself on land and the quick shots we have of her in the pool.

The first time I read it, I perceived something that wasn't there at all. I thought, finishing it, that most of the l More...

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Nov 05, 2010

Susan rated it:

Told in first person stream of consciousness, we learn the story of Pip or Philomena from literally her birth to her late twenties or so.
Swimming is Pip; Pip is swimming. From day one she is more alive and comfortable in the water. She goes from the casual swimmer to an Olympic champion. That is her focus, leaving in her wake, her family and friends. Both her sister and father die, her other sisters and mother are all various types of nut cases. Swimming is what grounds her and keeps her go More...

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Feb 12, 2010

Christi rated it:

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Nov 24, 2009

Amy rated it:

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Dec 26, 2009

Liz rated it:

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Aug 19, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

3 and a half stars. Nicola Keegan has a very unique style of writing and her similes are absolutely amazing. She really made me stop and think quite a few times with sentences such as "death can waltz into life with a sharp pair of scissors, cutting someone out so neatly that all that's left is an empty space". Wow.
Keegan's first novel follows the life of Philomena, a water baby bound to break world records and swim her way to three Olympics. Mostly, though, it is the story of h More...

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May 30, 2010

Jenny rated it:

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May 19, 2009

Rhlibrary added it

Marie's 2009 beach read:

Just the cover itself makes me want to jump into the closest body of water on a hot summer day. Philomena (or Pip as she is often called, though she hates it) is an Olympic champion swimmer who gets through all the perils and heartaches of her upside down life one stroke at a time. This wonderfully character-driven novel follows her throughout her adolescence in Glenwood, Kansas into her early adulthood as she goes for gold. Nicola Keegan’s clear voice, flui More...

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Jan 13, 2010

claudia rated it:

Awful writing. Trying to be poetic, but just comes off as nonsense. No character development. All characters are dysfunctional. What has been described as comical observations of the main character by book review critics, comes off as just plain snarky to me. There is no momentum to this book. This character has successes, but you don't understand her despondence, because the writing is so confused, and over laden with metaphors. Th author also does not check scientific facts. The pituit More...

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Nov 23, 2009

Julie rated it:

I admit I didn't finish this. It started really well, and I quite liked it, but then as she got older, it started to get nasty so I quit. I do like the way she writes, in that she lets you figure out the emotions just by watching what happens, she doesn't tell you what you're supposed to feel, or even what the actual character feels. It takes a gift to do that. Also, though, I didn't like any of the characters much, especially the main one, she seemed very selfish and self-centered. Maybe I More...

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Sep 05, 2009

Robyn rated it:

I felt this book has a lot of potential, but needs significant rewriting. The central character, an Olympic swimmer, was interesting, complex, and made me want to run out and get her therapy! By the end of the book, I was engaged in the story. However, the writing style drove me up the wall. There were so many incomplete sentences and seemingly random thoughts. I think the writing style was supposed to be stream of consciousness but it just didn't work for me. I feel like if this book was More...

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Aug 26, 2009

Amy rated it:

There was a point last weekend where I was ravenous for this book. You know that feeling where you're kind of annoyed at life getting in the way of reading? That's where I was. I think it might have been one of those serendipitous reads because it pulses with a dull ache and sadness, but doesn't overwhelm you with it. And last weekend I was totally into diving in and wading around in the gloom and anguish. (See what I did there? I'm a cheeseball and I couldn't resist.)

I must More...

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Aug 11, 2009

Barb rated it:

I really enjoyed this book - it was a different style of writing for me that included the dialogue between the characters along with what they were really thinking but not saying. The story followed a daughter in a family of four girls - Pip (Philomena) loved to swim and was a natural who worked her way up the ranks to the Olympics. As she was doing so well, the more minor characters in the book were not and it covered life's evolution for them all. The ending was good and provided closure fo More...

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Apr 27, 2010

Allison rated it:

The first two-thirds of this book were right on the mark: it's a book about swimming, family dynamics, and growing up. We follow the main character, Pip, through her childhood and adolescence as she deals with her sister's debilitating illness and depression, her mother's agoraphobia, and her father's virtual withdrawal from the family by catapulting herself into the world of competitive swimming.

Having been a swimmer myself, I found the various passages describing swimming and the feeli

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Aug 26, 2010

Cynthia rated it:

Pip is born large and loud. This big baby has a talent for swimming, though, that author Nicola Keegan explains well.

(page 7)"All I know is that when I kick, it moves me, so I kick again, liberated from my fleshy prison of gravity."

The side story of Pip's sister Bron's illness is told well and from differing viewpoints. We feel Bron's anger, her indifference and her frustration with her dysfunctional family.

(page 41) "The moon waxes, the moon wa More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)