Review: Women Float by Maureen Foley

by Donna Huber

As you may recall, I went through a huge backlog of emails at the end of last year. I found quite a few ebooks that were sent unsolicited. A few were passed on to my other reviewers, but some I kept for myself. Women Float is one of those ebooks.
Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free ebook was provided for an honest review.

May 2013; CCLaP Publishing
ebook (68 pages); women's fiction

For a novella, it took me quite a while to read it. I was just never really hooked by the story or the characters. I felt like the foundation was there for some real tension and character development, but nothing came of it.

The main character Win was abandoned by her mother days after her 9th birthday which in itself was eventful. Win had her birthday at the beach. Though she does not know how to swim she gives in to her friends teasing and attempts to swim out to the buoy as well and almost drowns. Her fear of water follows her into adulthood as well as the scars of her mother's abandonment. We truly meet the heroine on her 29th birthday, without family (her aunt has passed and her mother has never returned), her best friend Mia organizes a water blessing.

The rest of the story is about Win discovering who she is and what she wants.

I didn't really like the character of Win and the story felt a little all over the place. The secondary characters weren't really fleshed out, and I felt like they were only there because Win couldn't exist in a vacuum.

Win is self-centered. Her pining, subsequent jealously, after Mia felt petty and a bit immature for a 29-year-old. Her outrage that Mia could love a man seemed a bit over the top. The fact that Mia didn't feel comfortable telling her about him was quite telling about Win's character (because Mia "didn't know how Win felt about men"). Interestingly, Cedric is the only male character.

I didn't know when I started the book that Win is a lesbian. I probably wouldn't have read it if I had because I don't care for LGBTQ fiction.

The story is not linear. We flashback some to her childhood. There is a scene about her making out with a female lifeguard one summer (and standing up Mia in the process). We know she works as a pastry chef though there really is only the one scene in which she meets Sandra who gives her swimming lessons. I felt the story was a bit disjointed; I wonder if it was meant to be that way as a subtle way of showing Win's mental instability. It's never said that she is, but I have to wonder if she isn't. And not just because of her fear of water. There is a scene where she drives out to her former house and then concocts a preposterous story about her mom starting the California wildfire that is burning around them.

Women Float had great potential, but it just had too many elements that I don't like in stories for me to really enjoy it.

Buy Women Float at Amazon

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.

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