BoatGirl’s #CBR4 Review #08: The Memory of Water by Karen White
If The Memory of Water by Karen White were being pitched as a movie, it would be described as Charlie St. Cloud as chick lit by Pat Conroy with a soupçon of Nicholas Sparks. This is a book that attempts to glorify the South Carolina shore by repeatedly mentioning pluff mud and sees no higher relationship than the eternal, sacred, vitally essential bonds of sisterhood. Woe to us women travelling through life without a sister. I decided to read it because it came up in a list of fiction about sailing and because I find I often enjoy Southern literature, even though the South itself frankly terrifies me. (I should have read the reader reviews first, as most of them panned it.)
The basic synopsis is that Marnie, a special ed art teacher, returns to her childhood home on the beach in South Carolina to help her traumatized nephew and in doing so, vanquish her own demons. Her sister, Diana, is presented as being like her twin, when in actuality they are 3 years apart. They were close as children with a psychotic artist mother, who wound up taking the girls out sailing in a storm and vanishing, leaving Marnie petrified of water and running for the desert. Diana has followed in her crazy artist mother’s footprints, down to taking her young son out sailing at night in a storm.
There were way too many inconsistencies and illogical plot points. For instance, I thought at first that Marnie and Diana were twins, by the way their childhood was discussed, but no, they were 3 years apart. The timeline for their history makes no sense – Marnie is presented as a fearless sailor until age 12, when due to her crazy mother she develops a fear of water, yet 15 or 16 years later, her high school friends still only think of her as this fabulous sailor. If she stopped sailing at 12, wouldn’t the people who knew her at 14, 15, 16 etc know that? “Hey Marnie, you were such a great sailor, too bad you stopped and didn’t sail at all in the majority of time we knew you.” Why would they have voted her most likely to win the America’s Cup her senior year of high school if she hadn’t sailed in 5 or 6 years?
The plot point about their mother taking them sailing in a storm was bizarre as well. When first presented, it was that they were children when it happened, which was reasonable and believable. But for a 12 and 15 year old who have grown up sailing to get suckered like they did – no. Sorry. And Diana talks about how much she always hated sailing, but other times how much she loves it. I know she’s crazy but I think this was just the author forgetting what she had written previously.There’s a special twist ending, that becomes obvious at approximately page 15. And the ending is preordained, and not in a good way.
Overall, the book was predictable and messy, and needed a good editor to shape it up and tighten up the glaring holes in the plot.
And I haven’t even started on the sailing. Oy vey! After finishing, I read the notes from the author and found out that she isn’t actually a sailor. Yeah, I noticed. Turns out, she isn’t from South Carolina either, but since I’m not, that lack wasn’t as distracting for me. Authors, it turns out there is a reason you are advised to write what you know.
Cannonball Read IV 
Was reading it, now skimming it to just get the gist of what happened and then be done but I agree; this is truly not worth picking up to read.