Sarah Moss writes prose that is clear, insightful and probing.
“ ...woman’s magazines always say that, a long scented bath, as if everything from baby weight to infidelity will dissolve in enough hot water, as if you can spend enough on bath salts to cover the smell of self-loathing and repressed rage.”
“ they won’t always love her this much, she thinks, holding her son, no one else, not even her children’s future selves, will ever be so pleased to see her coming as they are today.”

Ever spent a rainy vacation stuck in a camper on a Canadian lake, with three tiny children who resemble small pox victims due to their numerous insect bites? Well I have, and Summerwater is that story; only set in a Scottish cabin park during a very rainy week. Each chapter is told by a different guest and each details a poignant slice of life. Woven together these chapters are rather more like short- stories tied by a common goal, resulting in a powerful quiet novel that ignites at its conclusion.
Highly recommended

A wonderfully atmospheric, stream of consciousness dive into the minds of each character, as they pass yet another soggy, grey, rainy day in holiday cabins on a Scottish loch. Each short chapter exposes the thoughts of an individual character, insights into their lives, their families, and observations about the residents of other cabins. Everyone is watching everyone else, what else is there to do? The end is abrupt and startling, though it's obvious from the start that something tragic is going to happen at some point in the book. Thanks to netgalley for a review copy.

The beginning of this short novel really had me hooked. I was enjoying the writing style (even though I'm not usually a fan of this sort of stream of consciousness) and there was a really thick sense of foreboding that made me want to keep reading. But as we kept shifting perspectives I didn't find some of the characters as appealing as others and I felt the ending was really abrupt. But I would definitely be interested to read more from this author!

I read and enjoyed Sarah Moss’ earlier novel “Ghost Wall” and I’m happy to say that her follow up, “Summerwater,” did not disappoint. Moss is a master of creating atmosphere and mood, and as she moves between the varied stories of the residents of a Scottish holiday park on one cold, relentlessly rainy day, she slowly builds tension and a feeling of unrest. Something is going to happen; the suspense is in wondering what. Moss’ characters—a middle aged woman who obsessively runs in all weather to forget her unfulfilling marriage; an elderly man dealing with his wife’s physical and mental decline; a teenager who tests the limits of his skill with a canoe; a newly engaged couple wrestling with their incompatible dreams of their future together—emerge as real people, with beautifully written inner dialogues that succinctly (and familiarly) capture their emotions. (Her writing reminds me a bit of Rachel Cusk’s in this aspect.) While I’m not sure that Moss nailed the ending of “Summerwater,” I didn’t really care. The journey to that point is well worth taking with her and her characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review.

Great book. Sarah is an excellent author and the way she wrote this one was brilliant. I will read anything she writes.

📖The interior thoughts of various characters on holiday at a Scotland loch. There isn’t a plot so much as a series of events seen through the eyes of people experiencing them. All leading to a shocking ending.
👍Totally unique. I don’t always love a stream of consciousness narrative because there comes a point where I get that “okay get to the point” feeling. Despite the languid pace, this book is short and not a word is wasted.
👎I don’t have a bad thing to say about this novel. It was beautifully crafted and the ending is at once shocking and also fully anticipated.

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THE VERDICT: This is my first five star of the year. I loved Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall that came out last year and this one lived up to expectations 100%.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📚Recommend for anyone who wants to really experience stream of consciousness in action and not just narration heavy books that people mistake for stream of consciousness.

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Thank you to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for providing me with a #reviewcopy and a special thank you to my favorite local bookstore @novelmemphis for the copy I bought after work ❤️

Sarah Moss’s characters have voices that echo in my head long after I finish reading. She (seemingly) effortlessly switches between a retired doctor, his wife, a middle-aged long distance runner, her couch-enticed husband; the children and adults who are spending their summer vacations at the end of a long road beside a loch in the very rainy Scottish highlands. The characters speak in turns, each retelling a snippet of a day, and it takes nearly half the book for the parts to start to coalesce. But when they do, the unfolding tragedy clearly arises from them all

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

For a novella, this was a bit too ponderous and plotless for my taste. I appreciated the ever-shifting points-of-view, but I didn't enjoy any of the characters and found many to be bundles of cliches. And while much of the novel meandered with a growing sense of doom, the ending felt abrupt and didn't fully pay off the foreboding tone leading up to it.

My first read of the year was a spectacular one. Not for the plot-lite averse, but I loved it. The writing is just fantastic. This slim novel set in one endlessly rainy day at a holiday camp of log cabins, by a remote Scottish loch, is all about the atmosphere and observations.
As each vignette touches on the inner lives, frustrations and micro-aggressions of the inhabitants, an ominous feeling begins to creep in. Every detail captured perfectly, holiday-maker so subtly observed. And interspersed between the character studies are beautiful paragraphs of descriptions of the creatures and landscape somehow looking on.... The whole novel gives that feeling of both being voyeur and of being watched.
Really fantastic. Can’t wait to read more Sarah Moss.

Summerwater comes together as a collection of stories from the POV of people living on a small Scottish isle, and how their lives interact on a rainy day. Although I enjoyed the book overall, there were a few characters I couldn't connect with and found myself skimming those chapters. Even still, I did not expect the ending AT ALL, and it left me wanting so much more! I really hope this won't be the end of Moss's writing about this group of people because I would love to hear more of this story.

4/5 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars.

This novella felt quite disconnected to me, unfortunately. I didn’t find the different perspectives to be providing something different from one another and I found the ending to be pretty abrupt. I do like Sarah Moss’s writing style and do want to still try one of her full-length novels, but I think her novellas just don’t work for me.

Thanks to FSG for providing me with an early copy of this through NetGalley. Summerwater comes out in the US on January 12, 2021.

This is a very unusual book. It is beautifully written but not for me. Each chapter is about a different character, one of twelve on a rainy vacation in Scotland. Each chapter is a short story within itself which doesn't seem connected at all until the ending. I found it difficult to read at times and had a hard time finishing. However I will definitely try to read something else by this author.

Thanks to Met Galley for allowing me to read this ARC for my honest opinion.

A dreary tale of a group of random strangers all out on summer holiday at a giant loch. The weather has been absolutely horrible forcing many of the occupants to stay inside. As time progresses you see the perspective of many different individuals who are having holiday, or live there year round, and glimpses into their lives and how they are coping with being inside all day with little to do.

From children's perspectives to the adults staying there, everyone handles the situation differently and each has a different reason for acting so. An interesting tale that is finally wrapped up with an event that ties many of the residents together.

While quite a slow going read, getting through it was a little difficult at points, and it seemed for a while to not have much of a story at all.

It's midsommer and it just won't stop raining in Scotland, where 12 people are holed up in a holiday park. All of them hoped, of course, for good weather but that isn't what they've got. This slim novel introduces you to each of them, their hopes, fears, anger, and so on. All very different, they do bond in a sense as they watch each other and try to cope not only with the rain but also with annoyances. it doesn't seem like much is happening until it does. No spoilers from me. I'm a fan of Moss, whose writing lures you in and lulls you. It's never boring and there's always a sense of foreboding darkness. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An excellent read.

Feeling depressed by social distancing? Why not commiserate with a group of vacationers at a remote Scottish holiday park on a rainy day? Everyone is either isolated indoors where people understandably can get on each other’s nerves or getting wet and dreary out of doors. The only access to the wider world is through the Wi-Fi at the local pub. Moss expertly builds suspense in this setting by using multiple close third-person narratives interspersed with short nature vignettes. This approach artfully explores the unseen worlds of her characters along with that of the local wildlife.

Moss’s characters are the clear strength of her novel. She treats them with sympathy, humor, and subtlety. They include young families, an elderly couple, newlyweds, rebellious teenagers, and rowdy immigrants. With the exception of the latter, Moss captures rich internal monologues from each about such diverse personal experiences as exercise (running and kayaking), age-related memory loss, sex, teenage rebellion, parenting, childhood worldview, ageing, class snobbery, prejudice, and politics.

The arc of the novel covers one dark rainy day where most of the adults are relegated to observing their neighbors at a distance. The mood is dark and claustrophobic. One also sees multiple opportunities for disaster along the way, including an early morning run in the dark by a lone woman, a kayaking experience on the lough in a wild windstorm, one child daring another to swing over water on a rope, a mysterious observer in the woods, an ex-soldier living alone in a tent, and a loud late-night party. Of course, disaster finally does arrive, but not until the final chapter. One senses, however, that Moss is less interested in writing a thriller than in observing human nature.

Suspense builds in each chapter yet dissipates due to the picaresque nature of the narrative. Each chapter is an impeccable standalone, only loosely related to the others. This gives the overall novel an unfortunate baggy feel. Notwithstanding this minor flaw, SUMMERWATER is indeed an engaging and thoughtful reading experience.

4.5, rounded up.

This is my first Moss novel, but it won't be my last - in fact, as soon as I finished, I immediately started reading Ghost Wall. In an odd way, this reminded me of Olive Kitteridge and its sequel - the way a major character in one story becomes a cameo in another, how the community itself is as much a character as any of the human ones, how the natural environment is always impinging on what happens.

Although I generally prefer a more linear structure, and this is just barely a novel, rather than a series of interconnected disparate short stories, the format grew on me, particularly how each story is bracketed by a very short passage telling what is happening AROUND the humans, in the foliage and animal kingdoms. Mainly though, Moss's exquisite handling of her prose style, her uncanny insight into human psychology, and the depth and breadth of her canvas I just found immensely satisfying.

My sincere thanks to Netgalley and F S & G for the ARC in exchange for this honest and enthusiastic review.

Engagingly written, but somewhat circumscribed by format, this emerges as a superior soap opera, that enfolds multiple characters and perspectives, as well as notes of politics and history. Capable and readable, but not a landmark.

This was only the second book I've read by Moss and, while I didn't love it as much as the first, it did prove to me that I need to dig into her backlist. Strong rain interrupts the summer holidays of several people in Scotland. We get to crawl into their minds and experience their innermost thoughts. Some characters were more compelling than others and I sometimes lost track of the connections but overall each voice was so realistically rendered I felt as I intimately knew them within a few pages. The ending was not satisfying to me as it felt like unnecessary drama when all I really wanted was time spent learning about th characters who did not have their own chapters to see what illumination their perspectives would bring. Moss is such a strong writer I will be reading everything she writes from now on.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The point of going away is to enjoy yourself, supposedly free from normal routine. So off we go to a Scottish park of log cabins, not much space between you and your unknown neighbors who are sweating out having "fun" because that's what we all paid for, right? Add to that one family that parties loudly every night, disrupting sleep and never called to task for it, and the endless rain, endless twilight, and inescapable damp. Fun. Hah. Each chapter relates this day from a different point of view, and Moss has a distinct talent for bringing out the individual misery and at some times, hilarity of the inner voice. She is a great storyteller and stylist.

The stream of consciousness narration layered perfectly to build a subtle sense of danger and dread as the story progressed. Like each person spying on their neighbors through a rainy window, the reader gets a taste of the unhappinesses of each family as they're secretly seething over the careless joy of the "foreigners". Content warning for suicidal ideation