The First Time She Drowned

Philomel Books

The First Time She Drowned
Kerry Kletter
2016

The Summary
"Cassie O'Malley has been trying to keep her head above water--literally and metaphorically--since birth.  It's been two and a half years since Cassie's mother dumped her in a mental institution against her will, and now, at eighteen, Cassie is finally able to reclaim her life and enter the world on her own terms.

"But freedom is a poor match against a lifetime of psychological damage.  As Cassie plumbs the depths of her new surroundings, the startling truths she uncovers about her family narrative make it impossible to cut the tethers of a tumultuous past.  And when the unhealthy mother-daughter relationship that defined Cassie's childhood and adolescence threatens to pull her under once again, Cassie must decide:  Whose version of history is real?  And more important, whose life must she save?

"A bold, literary story about the fragile complexities of mothers and daughters and learning to love oneself, The First Time She Drowned reminds us that we must dive deep into our pasts if we are ever to move forward."

The Good
Oh.  My.  Gosh.

I loved this book.  I know, I love a lot of books (hence my huge reading list); however, The First Time She Drowned has quickly taken a place beside such favorites as The Fault in Our Stars and I'll Give You the Sun and The Book Thief.  It has many of the same tragic, but beautiful qualities that made me love these books beyond the normal novels I read.  I ugly cried with this book, and I do not often ugly cry with my books.

The First Time She Drowned is a very special novel.  This book hurt my heart, absolutely crushed it, and then it made me cry for all the small, beautiful things that made Cassie's unbearable life more bearable and, ultimately, healed her.  My heart was broken by all the cruelty and grief she endured, only to be broken again when she finally begins to piece her life together.

My heart still hurts a little.

Additionally, Cassie makes a wonderful narrator.  Her descriptions are beautiful, and her voice is unique and strangely compelling.  She tells her story with such emotion, giving it a depth that rivals the very ocean she loves.  Personally, I loved her words.  I loved the way she spoke, the way she related her history and made it a sensory experience.

As a reader, I enjoyed those little details that gave an added emphasis to what she felt, tastes and sounds and tactile sensations that made her experiences undeniably real.  It’s fascinating to see her story unfold, to see her life come together in bits and pieces as she uncovers dark secrets from her family and makes new friends, finds new ways to heal herself and her relationships, and I quickly became entranced by her narrative.

Overall, I absolutely loved reading The First Time She Drowned.  It's heart-breaking, but it's so beautifully compelling.  I can't completely describe how much I enjoyed this novel, simply because it hit me on an emotional level and made me care about Cassie, made me care about what was happening--and made me ugly cry.

That's always the mark of a good book:  when it makes you care.

The Bad
Cassie's narrative bounces through time, which sometimes threw me for a loop.  It's easy enough to distinguish between the past and present:  one, Cassie frequently notes when she's reaching into her memories; two, she speaks in the past tense when she's referring to her memories, but she speaks in the present tense when she's living in the moment.  There's a definitive line between her past and present, but I was sometimes surprised (or, maybe, alarmed?) by her history as the boundary between the two seemed very fluid.

Basically, you're confronted by the very middle of her story.  She's still living her life, struggling to endure and heal from the various hurts she endured from her mother (and, by proxy, her malleable father), but she's also reliving her past.  You start in the middle of her story and work your way out, seeing her past and glimpsing her future as she lives it.

The Ugly
Abuse.

Great-aunt Dora was terrible, of course.  I hated her, because I could tell her place in the story would lead to bad things.  (I was right, which didn't make me feel better.  It reminds me of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, much more than I expected.)  She's the fulcrum point at which Cassie's life goes horribly, horribly wrong.

But I was shocked and appalled by her mother.  I mean, at first you see these little slights--small, tiny things, like her preference for Cassie's brother or her demeaning comments meant to make Cassie feel bad about herself--and then it turns into outright abuse.  Her mother is malicious and, if things don't go her way, she'll manipulate the situation to turn things for herself.

Like sending Cassie to a mental facility when she couldn't control her every moment, when Cassie refused to be demeaned or abused anymore.

It's absolutely gut-wrenching.  I hated to see it.