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Book Review of The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming
Judyh avatar reviewed on + 227 more book reviews


This is a murder mystery set in the Florida panhandle, which is essentially Alabama -- deep South. The main character is Laurel Hawthorne, a mother and wife. She has a tendency to see ghosts, and as the story is beginning she sees the ghost of a young teen who is a close friend of her daughter Shelby. Laurel then finds this girl floating dead in her backyard swimming pool. Other primary characters are her husband, David, who she knew in high school and who she married after becoming pregnant, and their young teen daughter, Shelby. The drowning appears to be accidental, but Laurel has doubts, and she and her crazy (drama queen) sister Thalia begin to investigate.

While this story is essentially a murder mystery, it is also a story about poverty, how poverty affects lives very profoundly, and how having been raised in poverty affects a person's life long after they have left that life.