Pros: Some complex, rounded supporting characters; good, descriptive writing overall.
Cons: So-called protagonist is a selfish, whiny albatross chained around the story's neck.
The Bottom Line: Supporting characters are interesting and well-rounded; it would've been nice to read more about them. Sadly, everything was pushed to the fringes to make room for Carrie's ego.
disinclined's Full Review: Ann Packer - Dive from Clausen's Pier
Plot details: This review reveals some details about the plot.
I used to like to pose hypothetical questions to my significant others. I always found it invigorating to ponder issues like, “Would I stay with (boyfriend’s name) if he got in an accident and was totally paralyzed? What about if he just lost the use of his legs? What about if he were blinded and suffered third-degree burns over 40% of his body?” and vice versa. Usually, because I’m a hard-hearted wench, the answer was “no” perhaps sensing this, the boyfriends seemed not to want to think about these what-ifs, and eventually disappeared altogether (presumably in search of a kinder and less-abandonment-prone girlfriend). But hey, it’s important. And, of course, you never really know what you’ll do in a situation until it happens.
In light of the positive response that my first review-limerick got, here’s another. If you’re pressed for time, you have my permission to read the poem and skip the rest.
When Miss Carrie Bell realized
That her beau, Mike, was quite paralyzed,
She withdrew all her cash,
Made an NYC dash,
Sought true love, and was greatly surprised.
Clausen’s Pier, home of the titular dive, is where our story begins. Carrie and Mike, long-time sweethearts who are now engaged, and their friends Rooster and Jamie, meet up at Clausen Reservoir for a Memorial Day barbecue. The mood is taut, a little tense: things have not been well between Carrie and Mike for some time, and he’s trying a little too hard to clown around and draw her attention. As a goofy stunt, he strips down to his swimming trunks, announcing his intention to dive into the frigid reservoir water. Splash! Crunch! Mike’s a quadruple paraplegic. Oops.
Carrie, a self-absorbed, spineless whiner, decides that she has better things to do than go and visit Mike in the hospital. In fact, she decides she has better things to do than go to work, and blithely disregards the convention of calling in sick. You see, when Carrie doesn’t want to do something, she doesn’t pause to examine her reasons or think about what the right thing to do might be; she simply doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do, regardless of how much it inconveniences or hurts or enrages others. So Carrie sits at home and sews curtains, ignoring the phone and the nagging voice of responsibility.
After a couple of weeks, everyone’s pretty tired of dealing with Carrie. Best friend Jamie, whom Carrie’s been avoiding for months now, is sick of being ignored; Mike’s parents correctly assume that Carrie is irresponsible and heartless; and Rooster, Mike’s best bud, hunts Carrie down in order to cuss her out about her callous behavior. Chastened, Carrie does a 180 and starts spending every waking moment at the hospital, playing Good Girlfriend. She does her best to reassure Mike that she still loves him and they’re still a couple, but it’s not long before the pressure of acting grownup overwhelms her, and she flees to New York without telling anyone she’s leaving.
Whee, New York! Carrie has a blast. She crashes at a friend’s place, doesn’t get a job, just loafs around being useless and ignoring everything she’s run away from. She looks up a guy she met at a dinner party back home, and latches onto him with repulsive neediness, requiring no higher purpose in life than to bury her face in his genitals at every opportunity. None of her new friends like the guy, because he’s a secretive jerk, but that doesn’t stop Carrie. Oh no! Her life has always been defined by the man she’s dating, and Carrie sees no reason to stop that now. Alas, life just ain’t that easy, and when her old life starts kicking up a fuss and demanding her attention, Carrie’s torn: continue skating through her mindless, stress-free existence of emotional numbness and carnal delight, or return to her Midwestern origins and face the discordant, angry music of her own making?
Perhaps I’m a bit biased. I loathe Carrie, you see. She’s a monster: incredibly selfish, totally indifferent to others’ feelings, she flails through life like the privileged, spoiled child she is, without even the vaguest notion of honesty, integrity, or kindness. She simply doesn’t care what people think of her, doesn’t care if her heartless behavior severs the entire network of connections she’s built with others throughout her whole life. How can anyone relate to someone swollen so huge in their own mind that there’s no room for anyone, or anything, else? Carrie is a huge and terrible black hole, relentlessly sucking in everything around her without ever giving back anything of her own, and I’m far from convinced that the ending represents any true change in character, or attainment of new understanding.
As though to balance out Carrie’s unbearable awfulness, the rest of the characters are interesting and far more sympathetic. Mike transforms from bland golden boy into a tormented but stronger man; slowly, he acquires a terrible wisdom, bought and paid for by his suffering. Carrie’s New York friend Simon is intelligent, witty, and good-hearted; it’s not clear why he bothers with Carrie, though she’s evidently agreeable enough until given an opportunity for betrayal. Jamie is dull but serviceable in the role of the wronged friend, unable to understand what she has done to bring Carrie’s utter indifference upon herself. The secret, of course, is that Jamie hasn’t done anything; that’s just the way Carrie is. By the end of the book, I was thinking darkly to myself that the wrong person got paralyzed for life; I’d strongly have preferred to see Carrie in traction.
Some of the best books are ones that challenge you to identify with the protagonist, where you discover as a reader that you can sympathize with an unsympathetic character. This is not one of them. No real explanation is given for Carrie’s inhuman behavior, although her father’s abandonment of Carrie and her mother is brought up far too often to be merely incidental. A quintessentially unreliable narrator, Carrie stains everything she relates with doubts as to authenticity – if she’s this clueless, this emotionally dead, how much can she possibly understand about what goes on around her? The ending is wishy-washy and unsatisfying, and I still don’t believe that Carrie truly gained anything from her experience; I know I didn’t. When even a curmudgeon like me condemns a so-called heroine, you know she’s got to be pretty bad.
How much do we owe the people we love? Is it a sign of strength or weakness to walk away from someone in need? These questions lie at the heart of Ann...More at HotBookSale
Twenty-three-year-old Carrie Bell feels suffocated and wants to leave her life in Wisconsin, but when her fiance is paralyzed in a diving accident, sh...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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