Butterfly Effect and emotionally dysfunctional family is all I could think, where someone has a Big Secret and it eats at the character throughout the novel but somehow this secret touches everyone beyond the person it directly effects, basically ruining their lives. One must wait until the end to get the Big Reveal, in regards to the drowning. Both Ruth and Amanda (the two quasi-narrators, when the text isn't busy jumping back and forth between third person perspective and the first person perspective) are seriously emotionally constipated but also clingy to the point of smothering. On the one hand I'm inclined to blame the grandmother (yes I'm still looking for that insanity bit, passing on through the generations) but all she wanted was a bit of peace and quiet whereas the other two had major issues of letting go. Well, and maybe they were a little neurotic too.

I guess I'm just disappointed because I was simply hoping for a book about a woman who went crazy, tried to drown her daughter and drowned instead. I was hoping that's where it was going in the first couple of chapters but then it went somewhere else completely. Ah well. Maybe next time.