Customer Reviews

Swim to Me (Bantam Discovery)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a delight this book is! I was transported to the muggy sweltering landscape of Weeki Wachee Springs near Tampa FL by Carter's descriptions of mermaid life. The story of young Delores Walker's transformation into the star mermaid, Delores Taurus, is inspirational. Her decaying life in the Bronx in the early 70's leaves her hopeless and yearning for more. Remembering one very happy moment in her childhood while visiting "the only live mermaid show in the world", she decides to leave her needy mother and little brother to pursue her dream of becoming a mermaid herself. Carter draws us in with exotic characters, each with their own story of how they came to Weeki Wachee, and why they are still there. Little snippets of history come through to remind us of the period (Buicks were big, Nixon was in office), and several references to the just opened Disney World in Orlando point out how different our perceptions of fantasy and reality can be. [...] for a fascinating peek at this institution that has managed to survive in spite of America's shifting views on entertainment. And read this book - you may want to become a mermaid yourself.

With an engaging premise and a spunky teenaged main character like Delores, I hoped this title would appeal to high school students, but it doesn't pass muster. Perhaps some adult readers would enjoy the walk down memory lane with nostalgic references that abound from the 60s and 70s including Danny Kaye songs, the NY Yankees, Dairy Queen and popular Florida tourist attractions. Unfortunately, not all the history is correct. In the story Disney World in Orlando has just opened which places the story in 1971 or 1972, but there's a mention of Walt Disney walking into a conference room. Mr. Disney passed away in 1966. Besides historical inaccuracies, the story line is only a notch above average so it isn't a book I would highly recommend.

"She was two years old when her mother dropped her into the shallow end of a lake...Delores Walker always claimed she had a vivid memory of this incident...Her body moved with the flow of it, the most natural thing in the world. From then on, the water was where Delores felt most at home." Thus begins the story of Delores Walker, a young girl from New York who leaves home to follow a dream.

On a family vacation to Florida, Delores is introduced to the world of real live mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs. She knows right away that this is what she wants to do with her life. But the realities of her dysfunctional family make the realization of that dream seem impossible until the day Delores discovers a stash of gold coins left behind by her estranged father. Using some of the coins to fund her trip to Florida, Delores sets out to join the ranks of the Weeki Wachee mermaids.

Carter has crafted a cast of characters who are as charming as they are eccentric. What gives this book its "just can't put it down" appeal is the way in which Carter intersects the lives (both past and present) of the girls of Weeki Wachee, a newsroom manager from nearby Tampa, the dysfunctional family members from the Bronx, and Thelma Foote, who runs the Weeki Wachee Springs Mermaid attraction.

With careful attention to detail, Carter has incorporated some of the very real attractions and issues of central Florida during the 1970s. There are the rumbles of the economical impact of Walt Disney World on other nearby, smaller attractions. There is the strong desire to preserve the heritage of the area in such endeavors as the Mermaids of Weeki Wachee and the home base for circus acts, even a hurricane threatening the Tampa Bay area of the western gulf coast. Readers are treated to delightful characters, the power of keeping dreams alive, the real possibility of hopes come true, and the importance of friends and family.

by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

"Swim to Me" was a pleasant escape, but unfortunately not as good as I'd hoped. The story has promise, but never really gets off the ground, sunk as it is by leaden prose. The characterizations are shallow, the setting not evoked as well as it could have been. Some conversations between characters seem natural, but others very much do not. For example, if you were reunited with a family member after two years apart would you sit silently while others in the room discuss business, never exchanging a word with your relative? Some vocabulary is used incorrectly, and the geography is often wrong. A hurricane comes into Tampa from the west, for example, then abruptly turns around and goes back into the Gulf of Mexico.

But what I did like about "Swim to Me" was that it made me remember childhood trips to Weeki Wachee in the 1970s, driving through Tampa and to Orlando. If all you want is a little nostalgia for old Florida, with low literary expectations, "Swim to Me" can fit the bill.

Swim to Me is a light-as-air story about members of a mildly dysfunctional family who have to find their way as the family dissolves. Fifteen year old Delores Walker's father Roy walks out one night, and two years later she leaves home to become a mermaid at a tourist trap in Weekee Wachee, Florida; the book follows her adventures and those of her bitter mother Gail, her withdrawn, taciturn father Roy and her bouncy little brother Westie who remains Delores's only real tie to her parents. The story is colorful and dramatic at times and Carter does a good job of showing the delicate family dynamic that Delores has to navigate once her family has disintegrated. She is particularly effective at illustrating a very tense mother-daughter relationship fraught with resentment and a stifling sense of claustrophobia. I've seen mother-daughter relationships like theirs play out in real life and it's not pretty- and Carter captures that push and pull very, very well. I thought that while Delores was someone I wanted to root for, her parents came off poorly. Gail, all sharp edges and envy, was a tough woman to like and Roy barely registered a personality or believable psychology at all. Westie was just a cute cypher- something to give Delores something to hold on to, as though he represented her own innocence and idealism. There is no sweet reunion to be had for the Walker clan but they do all learn to carve out a space for themselves and each other.

SWIM TO ME

I was so excited to receive and read SWIM TO ME. As a kid, I can remember TV commercials featuring the mermaids and some of their antics!!! This memory was what caused me to be interested in SWIM TO ME. However, I was not too thrilled with this book. LOVED the cover!

The concept and idea of the book is GREAT -- set in the 70's, a young teenage girl flees her unhappy home in the Bronx, going to a happy place she remembers from her youth, the mermaid show in Florida.


Delores Walker is the teenager who runs away to become a mermaid. Her family life has fallen apart so she takes off. This book deals with her becoming a mermaid, her friends there, and her trying to reconnect with her mom, dad, and baby brother.

The book just seemed to be in a rut the entire time. Events, conversations, situations, never seemed to take off and go anywhere. While the idea was a good one, things just never jelled for me.

If you would like a sweet, not-to-deep little book to pass the time, this is the one for you. The mermaid sequences were interesting, but I never really cared about the characters or what happened to them. I just wanted to finish this so I could start on another book, which makes me feel awful.

Thank you for your time!
Pam

I found Betsy Carter's SWIM TO ME a total delight to read. This is a novel about people who seem fated to remain underdogs, yet by using their wits, imagination and pluck, they manage to find meaning and joy in life. You can't help but root for them. Carter writes about her characters--including those who behave badly--with humor, wisdom and tenderness. The story is full of surprises, unusual twists that nevertheless have an aesthetic and emotional integrity. The writing is wonderful: spare and at the same time filled with startling details that bring Weeki Wachee and its inhabitants to life. Carter offers profound insights into family dynamics while dishing up an entertaining, thoroughly satisfying read.

Mermaids are a magical mystery species, appealing to everyone from Hans Christian Andersen to T.S. Eliot (brush up your Prufrock) to Starbucks logo-makers. They have a touch of the siren, the allure of elusiveness. To teenage Delores Taurus, the heroine of Betsy Carter's engaging new novel, mermaids are a practical matter, the crucial element of the job that gets her out of a broken family in the Bronx and into the mermaid tank at Weeki Wachee Springs near Tampa, Florida. (The novel is set in the 1970s, so what may seem kitschy now was unselfconscious popular entertainment then.) After acing her audition to perform in the underwater shows there (including a rippling version of "The Godfather"), the shy, tall girl whose aquatic skills provide her only confidence, gradually discovers that she can succeed on dry land too. In the course of this beautifully crafted novel, Delores makes friends, learns to deal with difficult bosses(the gruff but miltilayered mermaid manager,Thelma Foote and a pointy-toothed, ambitious producer of a local TV news show) and ultimately finds ways to understand her estranged parents and display her fierce affection for her little brother, Westie. As in her first novel, "The Orange Blossom Special," Carter loves her characters and knows how to satisfy her readers with a well-told tale that is both colorful and tender. Highly recommended.

Swim to Me by Betsy Carter is one of the best pieces of writing I have seen in a long time. It has an excellent pace, the characters are well crafted and the story just draws you in. Delores Taurus, is the central character and she decides to go to Weeki Wachee Springs and become a mermaid after her father leaves the family because Weeki Wachee Springs is the one place she can remember being happy in her childhood. Carter does an excellent job of developing all the characters into people that you care about. I love how each of the characters grow and change over the course of the book.

It is a joy to read something this well written!

"Swim to Me" brings back memories of childhood trips to Weeki Wachee. That's fun, but I found the book dissappointing as a whole. I was expecting more after reading the good reviews. It's an ok read.