2021.05.24 Meeting Notes

If you read only one part of this email, let it be this:
June 28 we will meet on ZOOM starting EARLY, at 6:00 pm (our new club time)
July 26 we will meet IN PERSON at the Lone Tree Library at our new club time: 6:00 pm
For our out-of-towners, please use the recurring Zoom link to login for July, we are going to attempt to patch you into the meetings.
Ok, with that said, great discussion of The Night Swim by Megan Goldin. Ok, so we weren’t totally sold by the title of the book, but it was a highly rated book by almost all of the club members.
The scores were: three 10s, eight 9s, three 8s, four 7s, and one 2. And to be fair, the score of 2 was largely awarded due to the disturbing subject matter of the book. Some people can’t read about hurting children, some can’t stomach cruelty to animals, and some are disturbed by books about rape. (Many people have trouble reading about all 3 subjects.) This book was definitely a difficult subject matter and the rape that was portrayed was particularly brutal, so it’s not surprising it wasn’t for everyone.
The positive scores were based on the great characters, plot, and writing style. The author did a good job of keeping the threads all straight. We loved that the podcast was included in the chapters and we felt that a podcaster investigating crime was a great idea and very interesting. Cindy pointed out that the author has a strong feeling of justice and the police chief was really at the core of it all. A voice was given to the underdogs, yay underdogs. For Amy, this was a “one more chapter” book. We LOVE those!
And did you just here what I said?? Amy liked it, she likee! I believe confetti fell from my ceiling when she gave it a 10. 
We like that Megan’s books are all very different, in a good way – you never know what to expect. Heather pointed out that we read Scott Turow’s The Last Trial, which was a courtroom drama that was slanted toward the defense. In this book, we read about a courtroom drama that was more slanted toward the prosecution. And thank god, because that boy needed to go to jail.
The author had us suspecting each and every adult male in town, thinking they were Bobby (or one of the other kids involved in the 25 years ago plot). We liked the songbird who wouldn’t sing symbolism, and I was super happy that our podcaster took the poor bird with her.
We really didn’t have any negative comments other than the fact that the subject matter was hard, especially for those people with daughters. Sharon K. did want to yell at Rachel for putting herself in precarious situations (it’s called fem-jep: when a writer puts a woman in ridiculous jeopardy. Me no likee!)
Some thought that the description of the small town and small town mentality was spot on. Others thought that it was hard to believe that an entire community would cover up the actions of such brutal teenagers. Our most deplorable characters seemed to be a tie between Scott and his mom. Although there were a lot of deplorable characters in this town. Note to self, never visit Neapolis, North Carolina!
Incidentally, one of the scores of 9 would have been a 10 but Jeff was a little bent that the podcaster, in her investigations, didn’t follow the car crash lead. He felt that this would have been something she would have looked into and when she didn’t, he lowered the book score. And Tara took a point off (another 9 that could have been a 10) because of the title. I told you in the beginning of this email that we weren’t impressed.
For those who are fans of Megan Goldin, there is still one more book to read. So far we’ve read The Escape Room and The Night Swim in club, but there is also The Girl in Kellers Way. It was her first book, published in 2018.
Megan gets more author points due to the fact that she replied to Sharon’s emails…twice. Yay to authors who care about their readers. And speaking of Sharon, thank you for leading the May discussion, and for emailing the author. Good job!
Last, but not least, welcome to our new member, Ann. Ann enjoys authors like Robert Ludlum, John le Carre (RIP), and Harlan Coben. She’s going to fit right in, especially given that last one!
I have updated Book Movement with the upcoming reads. If you haven’t joined us there, please let me know and I’ll send you another invite. It’s the site we use for reminders. Another is our wiki site: 
https://crimeandbeyond.fandom.com/wiki/Crime_%26_Beyond_Wiki
Our new monthly factoid is called What Heather is Reading. Currently, it's Northern Spy by Flynn Berry, just in case you wondered.