The Swell by Allie Reynolds
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’m going to throw out a caution flag early that this review could get extremely salty…
I’m not sure why I feel so burned by this one, but I do. Putting it mildly would be to say that The Swell didn’t hit as I expected it to.
With Publisher’s Comps being Point Break and the classic And Then There Were None, I fully expected to be pulled in by this; to be engrossed, to be intrigued.
What I got was 95% boredom, 5% tepid interest.
This story follows Kenna, who abruptly travels to Australia after her estranged best friend, Mikki, announces her engagement.
Mikki has been living in Australia for a while and met Jack there. He’s an Aussie and if she marries him, that means she’ll be living there indefinitely. For some reason, the mere idea of this shocks Kenna into action, even though she has never gone to visit Mikki there before.
After she arrives, Mikki’s behavior could be described as a little strange, maybe stand-offish. Then her new man, Jake, announces they are taking off for the beach to surf. Some discussion finally determines that Kenna shall be lucky enough to go along with them.
A remote beach, a bunch of bizarre people gathered there. It’s a big secret, no one can find out. No one! Missing girls. Thefts, drama, acts of daring. Weird people doing weirder things. Deaths. Eyes glazing over. The end.
In theory, I should have enjoyed this. The remote location and mysterious group of people, but honestly, I could not have cared less about any of this.
I really had a great time reading Reynolds’ earlier release, Shiver. I found it to be so fun and compelling. I’m not sure why this one felt so different to me. Maybe the subject matter, the characters, the execution, all of the above?
Either way, if it wasn’t for the audiobook, I never would have made it through. I wanted to DNF so many times, but pushed on because I could calculate exactly how many more hours I had left to suffer through.
Anyway, look. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Just because this didn’t work for me, doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. If it sounds interesting, give it a go!
For me, I am so happy to be checking it off my list and moving on.
Thank you to the publisher, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, for providing me with a copy to read and review. Even though this didn’t work for me, I would definitely be up to reading more from Allie Reynolds.