Helpful Score: 4
A fun story. I liked it. Didn't want to (the cover mentions "female empowerment," for crying out loud) but I did. Picked it from the 'clearance' cart at the UBS, thinking it might be appropriate for a pre-teen niece. (It's not.) Other reviews describe the plot: Fat Charlotte is told she is dying. She robs a bank, stashes $2 million in suitcases in the used car she bought, runs off to Hollywood, gets a fabulous apartment, becomes un-fat, finds a fabulous pool boy (who happens to be a lawyer). But he's married... wait, no he's not. Sounds like a Lifetime movie, sappy and improbable. But remember the F-word: it's Fiction. The cover has the title in pink script, so it has to have a happy ending. Of course everything works out with the trial, jail time, the former best friend, the new boyfriend, and (almost) everything else.
Was hooked after the first few pages. Charlotte is a delightful character. The dog-loving neighbor, Dolly, reminds me of Margery, the purple-clad landlady in Elaine Viets' Dead-End Job series. Dolly-- improbably, and sadly-- figures in the ultimate contribution to the happily-ever-after ending. The book is fairly long (430 pages in MMPB) but fast to read. Two police officers are minor characters. I would like to see them have a bigger role in some future book.
Was hooked after the first few pages. Charlotte is a delightful character. The dog-loving neighbor, Dolly, reminds me of Margery, the purple-clad landlady in Elaine Viets' Dead-End Job series. Dolly-- improbably, and sadly-- figures in the ultimate contribution to the happily-ever-after ending. The book is fairly long (430 pages in MMPB) but fast to read. Two police officers are minor characters. I would like to see them have a bigger role in some future book.
Helpful Score: 2
After discovering that she has one year to live, Charlotte commits robbery. This is a fast paced fun book about how an ordinary woman changes when faced with her own death.
Helpful Score: 1
For quiet, overweight, unassuming Charlotte Clapp, life can be summed up by a single phrase-"some men die with their music still in them." All of her life, she's lived in a small town where the only thing more stifling that its inhabitants are her own thoughts. But, when she gets the news from her doctor that she's dying, and has only a year to live, letting the music inside of her out has never seemed more important.
So, she robs a bank. Yes, a bank...the very same bank that she's worked at for the past fifteen years. After all, she's dying, and if she wants to realize her dreams- which include going to Hollywood, California, meeting Tom Selleck, singing karaoke, riding in a hot-air balloon, and finding a man to love who will love her in return-she's going to need money. Lots of money. Money in the form of two million dollars in small bills, to be exact, which just happens to be sitting in the bank in small town Gorham, Massachusetts.
And so begins Charlotte's transformation; first into the life of Blossom McBeal, a woman who unconsciously strips off over a hundred pounds of comforting body fat, meets a widow who throws parties for her dogs, and falls head-fast into lust with the pool boy. And as the people of Gorham believe that Charlotte has committed suicide over the news of her impending death, Blossom comes to terms with who she is. She's a woman who has so much to give, and so much to give up-anger, resentment, and, above all, she must hand out forgiveness to everyone who has hurt her, and must also forgive herself.
As Gorham's Police Chief begins to suspect that quiet Charlotte, all two-hundred and fifty-three pounds of her, may have been behind the bank heist, opinions in town flow fast and free. It seems that Charlotte was much loved, more so than she ever knew. But out in Hollywood, Blossom is learning to live again-through nightly swims in the pool at her apartment complex.
NIGHT SWIMMING is a wonderful, wonderful book, a mixture of women's fiction, mystery, adventure, and romance. Ms. Schwarz perfectly blends the story into a book that you won't be able to put down. Charlotte is me-she's you-she's every woman whose ever had dreams that have been put on hold, stuffed into the back of an old drawer. She's the woman we wish we could be-brave, spontaneous, forgiving, loving. Charlotte is Blossom, who is Lila, who is all of us.
As Chief Makley closes in, as her friendship with her neighbor Dolly comforts her in her sadness, as her relationship with lawyer-turned-pool boy Skip turns to love, the message of NIGHT SWIMMING is clear-no regrets. Live your life to the fullest. And no matter what, you cannot be allowed to die with your music still inside of you.
So, she robs a bank. Yes, a bank...the very same bank that she's worked at for the past fifteen years. After all, she's dying, and if she wants to realize her dreams- which include going to Hollywood, California, meeting Tom Selleck, singing karaoke, riding in a hot-air balloon, and finding a man to love who will love her in return-she's going to need money. Lots of money. Money in the form of two million dollars in small bills, to be exact, which just happens to be sitting in the bank in small town Gorham, Massachusetts.
And so begins Charlotte's transformation; first into the life of Blossom McBeal, a woman who unconsciously strips off over a hundred pounds of comforting body fat, meets a widow who throws parties for her dogs, and falls head-fast into lust with the pool boy. And as the people of Gorham believe that Charlotte has committed suicide over the news of her impending death, Blossom comes to terms with who she is. She's a woman who has so much to give, and so much to give up-anger, resentment, and, above all, she must hand out forgiveness to everyone who has hurt her, and must also forgive herself.
As Gorham's Police Chief begins to suspect that quiet Charlotte, all two-hundred and fifty-three pounds of her, may have been behind the bank heist, opinions in town flow fast and free. It seems that Charlotte was much loved, more so than she ever knew. But out in Hollywood, Blossom is learning to live again-through nightly swims in the pool at her apartment complex.
NIGHT SWIMMING is a wonderful, wonderful book, a mixture of women's fiction, mystery, adventure, and romance. Ms. Schwarz perfectly blends the story into a book that you won't be able to put down. Charlotte is me-she's you-she's every woman whose ever had dreams that have been put on hold, stuffed into the back of an old drawer. She's the woman we wish we could be-brave, spontaneous, forgiving, loving. Charlotte is Blossom, who is Lila, who is all of us.
As Chief Makley closes in, as her friendship with her neighbor Dolly comforts her in her sadness, as her relationship with lawyer-turned-pool boy Skip turns to love, the message of NIGHT SWIMMING is clear-no regrets. Live your life to the fullest. And no matter what, you cannot be allowed to die with your music still inside of you.
Helpful Score: 1
I loved this book. Good Chick lit. Different than the usual and very entertaining.
i liked this book alot.the writing style is alot like jennifer weiner
A great book! I couldn't put it down. It makes you dream about what you'd do with $2 million dollars when starting a brand new life!
Nice story, easy read, great vacation book!
excellent book
Ehh... This was not a good book. I expected, from its description and some of the reviews, something light and fun - a beach-read. And while the plot was certainly ridiculous enough to qualify and there were a few parts that sort of made me chuckle, there was something inherently alienating, off-putting about the whole book. The way the book was written, its "style" (if you could really call it that), made it seem like watching fish act out a story through thick aquarium glass that had never been cleaned. You could snatch glimpses of something real, but you could never actually connect with any of the characters through the dirty glass of her words. Her most realistic creations were the dogs... I'm glad that I picked up this one up in the dollar section! It is a shame, because as ridiculous and predictable as the plot was, I think that there was real potential here for this to be a genuinely fun book.
I loved this--I read it in one day!
This was basically equivalent to watching one of those stupid movies on the Lifetime Network--you know it's totally contrived and implausible but you have to watch it to the end anyway... Harmless chick lit;not my thing, but not horrible.
Charlotte finds out she has one year left to live....and oh what a year it turns out to be! She quits her job at a bank, then robs it. She takes off to Hollywood to live the life of her dreams. When finally, happiness seems to emerge...reality intrudes. Will she have time to get what she wants before it is too late?
Very cute story!!
Very cute story!!
I really enjoyed this book. Charlotte Clapp just found out she has one year or so to live because of a disease that killed her mother has affected her as well. She decides that she is tired of the old life she has so she robs the bank that she worked at and takes off for California. She buys an apartment, for only a million, and settles in to a new life. She falls for the pool boy, but she thinks that she is hideous because she weighs almost 300 pounds. She starts swimming at night. Then her past catches up with her and she is taken away from California. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who likes a fun read. This is a great book and will be thoroughly enjoyed.
I really enjoyed the lyrical, vivid, character driven writing in this novel. The story itself was Cinderella-like, but not in a soft, simple way. Very compelling. It would be a shame to miss this book, especially for someone tired of the same old cookie cutter plots. Even in fiction, don't we want what we read to be believable?
A woman's empowerment book for sure! Grab a cup of coffee and get ready to laugh!
A great light hearted story about a woman who thought she was dying and needed to live her life to the fullest.
What a great story. The main character, an obese young woman, is told by her doctor that she is going to die. So, she does what any woman in that situation would do. She steals a ton of money and moves across country to live the rest of her life as she always wanted to live.
