Reviews

I had to stop and consider my feelings, about this book, for some time before they coalesced.

Although beautifully constructed and written, this is not a quick read. It is an interesting nod to a memoir, memoir without the trimmings. We gather only the life journey snippets we need to explain the moment. That is the thing, the moment. We don't have a huge landscape but we have the intensity of short snatches. The focus of swimming year-round the known and hidden lakes around Berlin (Brandenburg) without the redundant clutter of examining anything but the facts. I found it incredible the moment when she takes a domestic hammer (as if commonplace) from her backpack to crack the ice enough to be able to enter the water for a swim! It is never even implied that swimming 52 lakes in one year is held up as a challenge. It is a decision to heal.

The sensitive and curious narrative exposure acts as some kind of cold water immersive therapy for the reader alongside the writer. I found it challenging yet riveting and was left wondering why I have been so circumspect about even thinking about such a journey! Syncopation extraordinaire...

ellen_ingrid's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

I read this book bit by bit over several months--not my usual reading style--so it simultaneously felt like an old friend and a slog. The action of the story, Lee prepping for, traveling to, and swimming in and observing 52 lakes, obviously got redundant. But Lee's writing is poetic and melancholic, and her trips to the lakes were interspersed with reflections on her life. We learn about her past marriage, her multicultural family, her struggles, her longing. I sometimes felt disoriented and apathetic when her focus shifted from the landscape of Germany to her ex-husband to her bike ride down to the lake to thinking about her dissertation all in one chapter, but by the end of it I felt at peace. It is beautiful, just different from what I'm used to reading.

caty_murray's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

bookly_reads's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Jessica J. Lee's memoir made me feel like I was vacationing in Berlin. I am grateful she resisted "cinematizing" her life, not forcing narrative arcs where there were none, and not exaggerating her sense of belonging in Berlin even while she acknowledged the almost spiritual pull of the city. She painstakingly recorded her own linguistic ignorance and difficulties with the language barrier, an aspect of living abroad that most people are eager to ignore.

Plus, I loved her descriptions of clear, cool lakes, and the fact that I now know the word "limnology."

smittenforfiction's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Turning: a year in the water is a beautiful, extremely unique, autobiographical nature-memoir written by Jessica Lee. It will be released May 2nd, 2017. The publisher kindly sent me a complementary digital proof copy for review. Read my review here: https://amandadroverhartwick.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/turning-a-year-in-the-water-bookreview-spoilerfree

notsoquietgrrl's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional informative reflective relaxing slow-paced

4.0

A beautiful account focused on lake swimming as a means of connecting to self and rewriting place in the wake of personal heartache and historical trauma. This memoir deals with many subjects - home, language, lakes, Germany’s troubled past and present - and while the more academic observations did sometimes take me out of the personal story, it all gelled well together overall. I particularly love the way Lee captures the quiet of a place and that tingling feeling of fear being alone in a body of water can trigger. And the tender portrait of a budding friendship towards the latter quarter of the book really had my heart.

More...