anka.trini reviewed The Night Swim by Megan Goldin
Review of 'The Night Swim' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
CW: rape, assault, sucidide
Ever since I learnt about the US justice system I found it very disturbing that a bunch of amateurs decide about someone's guilt. This book made me question it even more. Court seems to be more about who is the most charismatic and whether you have enough money to hire the most unscrupulous defense attorney.
The book itself was very entertaining and full of suspense. Once I started reading it was very hard for me to stop. I liked that there were two cases. One strand of plot was more or less a court room drama about a rape trial. The other one was a cold case about a girl who drowned decades earlier and whose sister thinks she was murdered.
Of course, rape is a very heavy topic and the author did a good job and was quite empathetic and sensitive. However, there were two …
CW: rape, assault, sucidide
Ever since I learnt about the US justice system I found it very disturbing that a bunch of amateurs decide about someone's guilt. This book made me question it even more. Court seems to be more about who is the most charismatic and whether you have enough money to hire the most unscrupulous defense attorney.
The book itself was very entertaining and full of suspense. Once I started reading it was very hard for me to stop. I liked that there were two cases. One strand of plot was more or less a court room drama about a rape trial. The other one was a cold case about a girl who drowned decades earlier and whose sister thinks she was murdered.
Of course, rape is a very heavy topic and the author did a good job and was quite empathetic and sensitive. However, there were two things that left a bad taste in my mouth. There is one character (a horrible one, though) that makes two awful statements that aren't critically discussed in the book at all: [spoiler warning]
1) The father of the rape victim says that he wants the perpetrator to go to prison in order to get raped himself by his inmates.
I guess we should all agree that revenge fantasies and vigilante justice are a no go.
2) The same father raped and murdered a girl when he was still a teenager and thinks that his daughter was raped to make him pay for his sins. Well, for one how could someone actually think that a crime happening to your daughter can be repentance for your own sins? It happened to your daughter and not to you, arsehole. And then, even if he had been the victim himself how would that make anything better? That's not justice at all. That's just revenge and old testament "an eye for an eye" bullshit.
I hate how the author just brushes over that...
But overall I enjoyed this book a lot. I would recommend the audio book because of the podcast element.
