The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

Title: The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

Author: Joshilyn Jackson
Published: 2008
Read: January 2011
Number of pages: 308
Fiction
Where I obtained the book: Barnes and Noble
How I discovered it: on one of the tables at B&N; read the back cover and was intrigued.
My grade: B

The title refers to a thirteen year old girl named Molly, the best friend of the protagonist's daughter who is found dead one night in their swimming pool. That fact that Molly came to Laurel, the mother of her best friend Shelby as a ghost is what intrigued me to buy the book in the first place. I did enjoy reading it (and it's a fast read), but don't expect any ghost stories. Molly only appears to her once, though she does sometimes see her Uncle Marty who was shot during a hunting jaunt (and I won't say whether that was an accident or not). 

No ghost story here. What this book really is is a murder mystery intertwined with a family drama. Laurel thinks someone might have been involved with Molly's death and wants to know why she was in their backyard in the first place. She feels the only person who can help her is her older sister, Thalia, but despite some differences, the two barely talk anymore. Some may say they make up too soon when Thalia agrees to help her, even though the sisters got along for the most part, she was doing this to help her niece. 

Laurel suspects that one of her neighbors, a guy in his 30s may have something to do with the girl's death because she gives him a creepy vibe. Of course we all know the most obvious suspect is never the one who does it, so when we found out the real reason for his weird behavior, I wasn't surprised that he wasn't the culprit. I did have a few of my suspicious, but I will admit I never saw it ending the way it did. 

Laurel and Thalia are from DeLop, Alabama (couldn't find it on Google, so I guess it's not a real place, which I guess is a good thing!) which is pretty much the worst place you can live in the United States. The description of this town was a little too over-the-top and full of stereotypes. Apparently, nobody there is educated beyond eight grade (and Laurel and Thalia were the only ones ever to graduate high school), there's no plumbing or electricity, everyone is a crack head or an alcoholic, people have no teeth, no food, no roofs on their houses. It's pretty much the Southern Ghetto intertwined with Hell. 

This book kept me turning the pages because I did want to find out to the dead girl and who was involved in her death.