Shallow Enough to Walk Through

by Marissa Reaume

"Three weeks it's been raining, but no puddles..."

Author Sara Pierce is slowly drowning in Windsor, a city where water will seemingly not stay put long enough to form puddles. While living with her germophobic best friend Angie and dealing with her online gaming-addicted boyfriend Dan, Sara finds herself obsessively writing and rewriting her own story in order to gain some sense of control over her life.

Reading like John Barth by way of Lena Dunham, "Shallow Enough to Walk Through" is a portrait of the artist as a young woman trapped in a world she never imagined would end up this way. Marissa Reaume's playful debut is a novel that makes and unmakes itself at the same time, as strikethroughs and compulsive editorial injections take us into the mind of a young writer struggling to finally come into her own.

Genres: Canada

180 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2013

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is set in my hometown. At first I didn't really get a Windsor-ish feel from it, but then she mentioned the "Feather Hat Man". I have seen him often. My sisters friend owns a shop downtown, she says he's nice. She also mentioned the man who wears dresses. People of all genders should be able to wear dresses if they want to. This particular man is mourning the loss of his wife, like that Brother Sharp guy.

The book is a little clunky and repetitive at times, but I still really liked it. It was kind of surreal. At first I was confused about how old fashioned the characters were, but I realize that it's because Mr. Pierce has mommy issues.

I hope women who are dating men like Dan realize that he is actually kind of abusive and leave those jerks. He reminded me of this article by Jenny Zhang.

It mentioned Nutella about 15 times.

[Christina B · Rating 3 out of 5]

*I received a copy of this book as part of goodreads First Reads giveaways*

I liked this book. This kind of book isn't normally my cup of tea, but I enjoyed the characters (most of them)and how they interacted together. I really disliked Dan though. In fact, he may win as most disliked character in a book that I've ever read! Not my type of person at all! That being said, I love Angie and Luke! They were my favourite as I was reading. The main character Sara Pierce had her good and bad points. Most of the time I liked her personality but her need to fix her 'boyfriends' was a tad annoying after awhile. I realize that it is a somewhat important part of the story (it's how she picked her men) but it wasn't my favourite. I actually found that we had a bunch in common with some of our thoughts and actions but minus the fixing part. One other thing that I wasn't so keen about while reading the book was the crossed out words. I get what they were for and enjoyed that part but I had a bit of a hard time reading the words when it happened in a large paragraph.

I'm Canadian and I enjoy reading books by Canadian authors or ones set in Canada, especially Ontario, so both of those criteria were met with this book. All in all, this was a pretty good book. I will read other books from this author if she writes any more.

[Kim Reaume · Rating 4 out of 5]

quirky and fun to read..this reminded me of myself and a girlfriend growing up!! funny and cute...if you know anyone with ocd you will appreciate this book...which im sure most of us do know someone

[Danielle Groulx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such delightfully neurotic characters. The quirky, vivid, running monologue of the main character was forever making me chuckle. I couldn't stop rooting for her (and catching myself giving her advice).

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

The story was just okay. I kept reading because I thought the characters had promise. I particularly liked the potential for greatness between Sara and Angie and their lifelong friendship.

The characters seem to really love one another but the author failed to really develop that love. Even Sara and Dan loved one another in a weird way.

I saw another review said that this is a case of a book being rush. I don't know what that means exactly, but something was missing here. Everything had promise, but the story never grabbed me.

EXCELLENT COVER (but unrelated to anything I read...maybe I didn't get it?)

*I received a copy of this book as part of a Goodreaeds First Reads giveway.*

[Siobhan Serra-coles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like how the book was written as if it was a novel in the making with words, phrases and whole paragraphs crossed out. It let you know what Sara was thinking but not necessarily saying or doing and how she was almost a prisoner in her own unwritten story. I didn't like the flash backs as they were kind of confusing to me and didn't seem to add to the story line. I like a little more action in my books so I thought this one was a little slow. I guess normal life is a little boring to me. I won this book (free) through Goodreads.

[Robert Stewart · Rating 1 out of 5]

An unfortunate case of a novel being published before it was finished. The Lena Dunham name check on the cover blurb is going to reel in some readers, but what it fails to mention is that it's the pretentious, too-cool-for-school aspects of a character that Dunham plays on TV that the author embraces.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I won this book in a giveaway on this website*
I really liked this book! I really liked to format the author wrote it in. I enjoyed getting to know the characters. Its a pretty good book and I would urge anyone who is looking for a book to read to read this one, I think they'll like it!