Book Thoughts: At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen

At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I struggled to determine how to rate this book. I found the writing to be solid, with decent pacing throughout. However, in the end, I think the fact that the book seemed to have an identity problem, and was fairly predictable, means its just "ok" on the Goodreads rating scale.

The plot itself is both easy to understand and a little out there - three high society individuals take a trip across the Atlantic to Scotland during World War II, so that Ellis Hyde (the husband of Maddie Hyde, the narrator and primary character), can find the Loch Ness monster, thereby getting back into the good graces of his father, who has cut him off financially. Ellis and his best friend, Hank, are spoiled and so completely out of touch they feel more like plot devices at time as opposed to characters. Maddie, who the story is really about, changes significantly in the novel - being someone who is annoying throughout the first half, but then someone the reader will root for by the end of the novel. But what happens to the relationships and characters becomes very predictable, to the point that you know what's going to happen, its just a matter of learning how. I read the last few chapters hoping there might be a surprise of some sort, but novel ends as you expect it to once you're about halfway through.

But more than the predictability, the book's identity problem is what irked me the most - chiefly because I felt that if the book decided what it wanted to be, it would be significantly better because of the solid writing. There's this metaphor of searching for the monster, and seeing monsters in everyday life - but its just surface metaphor, and the potential for a deeper allegory is missed. The characters, which are memorable, all fulfill a role, and help push the story along to end neatly, but an opportunity was missed to do more development. There's the parallel of understanding the devastation of the war - and living in a country that has air raids and shelters and gas masks - with the devastation of relationships and self-identity, but its not explored. At the end of the book, Maddie points to certain events as being important to her growth, but in reading the book, those events feel distant and unimportant. In sum, the book felt like it tried to do much - provide interesting characters (but forgot to develop them), provide metaphor and allegory (but failed to expand), provide romance (but made it seem almost shallow and trite in how it came about), and provide the sense of foreboding as a result of the War and its destruction, but insist upon a happy and all "roses and sunshine" ending. Each of these things was "ok," but if the book cut one or two of them out, or took some extra time to develop in greater detail one of these particular strains, the book would have been much, much better in my opinion.

As it is, I think its just okay, being a book that has solid writing and pacing, but mostly flat characters, unexplored allegory, and a fairly predictable plot.

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