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Kristy H (1252 KP) rated The Swap in Books

Jun 25, 2020  
The Swap
The Swap
Robyn Harding | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Low Morrison grows up on an isolated island, known for its free-loving ways. Her parents take this to the next level, living a polyamorous life that leaves Low embarrassed, ashamed, and a social outcast. When she spots the beautiful Freya at her school, she's enthralled. She sees Freya hanging up signs for a pottery class and knows she must join. She's Freya's only student and quickly becomes besotted with her teacher. Freya has no problem sharing all of her secrets and desires with her young apprentice. That's until Freya meets Jamie, who owns a local shop in town. The two become quick friends, leaving Low feeling left out and an outcast once again. One night Freya and her husband Max invite Jamie and her husband Brian over for dinner; they have no idea a jealous Low is lurking in the shadows. The foursome partake in drugs and a crazy night occurs, changing their lives forever. It also gives Low a chance to hold something over their heads.

This was a slightly insane and improbable thriller that I sped through in an entire day. It was fast-paced and nearly impossible to put down, as you just knew the characters were hurtling toward disaster. It's filled with a variety of fairly unsympathetic characters, though I felt for Low, unwanted in her own busy family and toyed with by Freya, who cares only for herself.


"I'd had to share all my life. I was done with it."


The story is told from Low's perspective, along with Brian, Jamie, and Max. We never hear directly from Freya, whom all of these characters seem to hold on a pedestal. Why exactly, we can never be sure, as she seems self-centered and cruel, playing with and torturing each of them to get exactly what she wants.

I found this to be a spellbinding read--it pulls you in as only Harding can do. Low's obsession, Freya's narcissism, Jamie's naivete. We can sense it all combining into something propulsive and horrible.

Overall, while I didn't love this one quite as much as The Arrangement, Harding's previous novel, I still enjoyed it. It's a fast-paced and creepy read, plus it's different and fun. 4 stars.
  
Pretty Little Wife
Pretty Little Wife
Darby Kane | 2021
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Slow to start, but ultimately an intriguing and unique thriller

Lila Ridgefield's husband is missing. A beloved high school teacher, his boss, colleagues, and brother cannot believe that Aaron Payne would just disappear. He's certainly not the type to simply not show up for work one day. As for his wife, Lila is known more for her cold and quiet demeanor (and, let's be honest, her beauty). She's also pretty confused, because the last time she saw Aaron, she was rather convinced she was looking at his dead body. So where's his car she left behind--and the body? Investigator Ginny Davis is called to look into Aaron's disappearance. At first it seems unrelated to that of a missing local student. But the more Ginny digs, the more she starts to wonder. And the more Lila digs, the more she fears her husband is still alive.

"Despite all her careful planning, he was gone. She had to find Aaron before he found her."

Well, this was quite a book. The beginning was a bit slow for me--it took too long to get to the exciting part, and it was repetitive. It felt like bits and pieces were rehashed over and over. I wanted to shake Lila and tell her to get on with it!

But, once everything gets moving, this is quite an exciting thriller. The last fourth of the story especially is incredibly electrifying and, for the most part, keeps you guessing. (I had a decent idea about whodunnit, but it didn't diminish my enjoyment at all.) I loved the concept of a mystery where the woman kills her husband, yet the main story is, surprise: he disappears anyway. The dynamic between cunning Lila, whom you're never sure you can trust, and Ginny, who is a straightforward and honest investigator, is excellent. I enjoy a book with strong female protagonists and these two are excellent.

Overall, even though this dragged for a bit, it's certainly worth a read. For one thing, it's different, which is so refreshing in the thriller genre. It's also dark, intriguing, and surprising. 3.5 stars, rounded to 4 here.

I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins Publishers and Netgalley in return for an unbiased review.
  
Fieldwork Footage (1928)
Fieldwork Footage (1928)
1928 |
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"The last one I think might be the most unusual one and this is footage shot by Zora Neale Hurston, who we know as a writer, a novelist, the author of Their Eyes were Watching God (the basis for the eponymous film), which is her best-known work. [She] was also a playwright, short story writer, and screenwriter for a while in her career. Really a Renaissance woman. When she was a student, she was studying anthropology with France Boulez at Columbia, and she was doing her fieldwork as an anthropologist on the kinds of communities that she grew up in, in Florida. In the late 1920s, she had a car and a 16-millimeter camera and she drove down to Alabama and Florida and she shot footage, ethnographic footage, as a part of her research. We featured some of this material on the Pioneers of African-American Cinema box set that I co-curated that was released by Kino. The footage is not narrative and it’s not exactly documentary either, in the sense that she never put together a work that then she was sharing with other people — it was for her research purposes. But she shows men who are logging, for example. My favorite passage of the footage was when she shows children playing games. The can game, and games when they’re in a circle or square and trading off movement and those kinds of things. We can see she’s capturing information that she’s going to use to talk about these cultural practices in her academic writing. It’s also really clear in the attention she pays the children and the attention that she pays to the movements of women, the way that she captures, even in the silent films, the rhythm and the musicality of church service. We can see visually the style that she’s developing that then she folds into her writing practice. We can say, because we know about this work that Zora Neale Hurston seems to be one of the first African-American women filmmakers, and so it gives us a deeper sense of her creative practice and her intellectual practice as well."

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