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Cracks
Book by Kohler, Sheila
176 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1999
66 people are currently reading
2061 people want to read
About the author
Sheila Kohler
43 books162 followersSheila Kohler was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, the younger of two girls. Upon matriculation at 17 from Saint Andrews, with a distinction in history (1958), she left the country for Europe. She lived for 15 years in Paris, where she married, did her undergraduate degree in literature at the Sorbonne, and a graduate degree in psychology at the Institut Catholique. After raising her three girls, she moved to the USA in 1981, and did an MFA in writing at Columbia.
In the summer of 1987, her first published story, “The Mountain,” came out in “The Quarterly” and received an O’Henry prize and was published in the O’Henry Prize Stories of 1988. It also became the first chapter in her first novel, "The Perfect Place," which was published by Knopf the next year.
In the summer of 1987, her first published story, “The Mountain,” came out in “The Quarterly” and received an O’Henry prize and was published in the O’Henry Prize Stories of 1988. It also became the first chapter in her first novel, "The Perfect Place," which was published by Knopf the next year.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 154 reviews
July 29, 2014
I knew what I was getting into with this one, I really did.
Like most people who have reviewed this book, I decided to seek this out because I had just watched the movie version and wanted to know how the two compared. Going into this book, I knew that the movie had taken several huge steps away from Kohler's original story, and based on that knowledge I was pretty sure I wouldn't love the book as much as I loved the movie. And I was positive that the book version of Miss G couldn't come close to Eva Green's charismatic, psychotic portrayal. But "Psychotic Schoolgirls Who Maybe Murdered Somebody" is one of my favorite literary genres, so in I plunged.
And wow. I knew the book and the movie were different; I just wasn't prepared for how different. Cracks, the movie, takes place in England in the 1930's, with a diving team that consists of only six girls. Fiamma, the wealthy and beautiful new student, is from Spain and has a tragic, scandalous past. Cracks, the book, takes place in South Africa and alternates between two time periods: flashbacks to when the girls were attending school in the 1960's, and twenty-ish years later when they've returned to the school for a sort of reunion. The swimming team has twelve members (which means twice as many characters to keep track of, and consequently none of them get fleshed out properly), and Fiamma is Italian, and her character is much harder to pin down and define. It's interesting, because although the movie drastically changed the big aspects of the story - setting, time period, character outlines - it kept a surprising amount of small details that appear in Kohler's book. Comparing the two stories is an interesting study in the art of adaptation, and I could easily write an entire review about just that, but I digress.
Kohler's book, as I said, takes place primarily in a girls' boarding school in South Africa in the 1960's (those looking for discussions about the political situation in South Africa will be disappointed; the social and racial issues are only hinted at and never addressed directly). The core group of characters are the twelve members of the school swimming team, who get a new member in Fiamma Coronna. Fiamma is an Italian aristocrat, and everyone is immediately fascinated by her - especially Miss G, the swimming teacher, whose fascination with Fiamma turns to obsession as the other girls become increasingly jealous. Sometime during that year, Fiamma disappeared in the countryside around the school, and the book unravels the mystery of what happened to her and why, interspersed with scenes of the girls returning to the school as middle-aged women.
I dunno, maybe I would have been more engrossed by the story if I hadn't known what happened to Fiamma already, thanks to the movie (but those who have seen the movie will still be surprised - the circumstances of Fiamma's death differ greatly in the book). Because I wasn't busy trying to figure out how Fiamma disappeared, I was able to focus on other aspects of the story. And some of the narrative choices Kohler made are...interesting. The book is narrated by an omnipresent "we" - which, I think, was a good choice. Instead of focusing on a single main character, Kohler makes the girls into one single group entity, which both reinforces the terrifying groupthink of the girls and emphasizes how they are all collectively responsible for what happened to Fiamma. There is no "I" or "she" to pin the tragedy on; everyone is guilty. That was good; less good is the fact that one of the girls is named Sheila Kohler. Who grows up to be a writer.
I have no idea what to make of this. On the one hand, it's an incredibly brave move to put yourself in a story like this, and to tie yourself so directly to the horrors committed in this book. On the other hand, it's weird, because "Sheila Kohler" is not the narrator of the book (the narrator is the mysterious "we"), so we're seeing her actions, as we see all the girls actions, from a removed distance. Is this Kohler's way of keeping herself at a safe distance from the events she recounts? And most importantly, is Kohler doing the Tim O'Brien thing where she makes herself a character in a fictional story to make it more real for the reader, or does this book mean that Sheila Kohler once ? I'm going with the first explanation, because that's the only way I'll be able to to sleep at night.
Other terrible narrative choices: some chapters are prefaced with a few lines of awful, awful poetry, like this one: "For Fiamma she could skim across the water,/As fast as could be,/For she was a prince's daughter,/And Miss G loved her most passionately." that are so awful I'm pretty sure Kohler wrote them that way intentionally, to mimic the awful poems we all wrote when we were fourteen. Which, fine, but it doesn't make them any more painful to read.
And the decision to show scenes of the women as adults returning to the school serves no fucking purpose. The movie adaptation wisely chose to get rid of this aspect, and it was a wise choice: by keeping the story focused on the girls as teenagers, we never have to see them growing up and dealing with what they did (although the movie still includes a scene where the girls start to understand what a terrible thing they've done - another reason the movie is superior). But even Kohler's book refuses to make this happen - what is the point of showing us these girls as adult women if they're not going to deal with what they did when they were teenagers? There's no reflection, no remorse, no discussion of what happened to Fiamma, and I don't understand the point of showing the women returning to the school.
This is the main reason I prefer the movie version: although it doesn't absolve the girls of their involvement in what happened to Fiamma, the movie places the majority of the blame where it should be: Miss G. Teenage girls and their psychotic cult-like cliques can be forgiven over time; Miss G was an adult who knew exactly what she was doing when she decided to ruin a teenage girl's life. And Movie Miss G is much more nuanced, revealing insecurities and mental instability beneath her carefully-crafted facade (the movie does a very clever thing where Miss G's hair, makeup, and clothing gradually become more messy and unpolished over the course of the movie as she unravels). Book Miss G is merely a cliche of a predatory older bull dyke who seduces young girls, like the worst nightmare of fundamentalists everywhere. Ugh. Book Miss G never answers for her part in Fiamma's disappearance, whereas Movie Miss G...you know what, just go watch the movie. That's what I want people to take from this review: go watch Cracks. Get your psychotic schoolgirl fix, and give Kohler's book a pass.
"'No inhibitions here! I will have no inhibitions here!' she said sternly. 'Repressions of libidinal urges only leads to aggression. Give me your secrets, girls, give me the dark depths of your hearts, and I will give you the light. Search your hearts, for the universe lies therein,' and we searched and searched. 'It is always more grubby than you think,' she added, and we nodded our heads, knowing she was right. She said there were certain subjects we should get out of the way, so that we could go about our business. She knew what we were thinking."
Like most people who have reviewed this book, I decided to seek this out because I had just watched the movie version and wanted to know how the two compared. Going into this book, I knew that the movie had taken several huge steps away from Kohler's original story, and based on that knowledge I was pretty sure I wouldn't love the book as much as I loved the movie. And I was positive that the book version of Miss G couldn't come close to Eva Green's charismatic, psychotic portrayal. But "Psychotic Schoolgirls Who Maybe Murdered Somebody" is one of my favorite literary genres, so in I plunged.
And wow. I knew the book and the movie were different; I just wasn't prepared for how different. Cracks, the movie, takes place in England in the 1930's, with a diving team that consists of only six girls. Fiamma, the wealthy and beautiful new student, is from Spain and has a tragic, scandalous past. Cracks, the book, takes place in South Africa and alternates between two time periods: flashbacks to when the girls were attending school in the 1960's, and twenty-ish years later when they've returned to the school for a sort of reunion. The swimming team has twelve members (which means twice as many characters to keep track of, and consequently none of them get fleshed out properly), and Fiamma is Italian, and her character is much harder to pin down and define. It's interesting, because although the movie drastically changed the big aspects of the story - setting, time period, character outlines - it kept a surprising amount of small details that appear in Kohler's book. Comparing the two stories is an interesting study in the art of adaptation, and I could easily write an entire review about just that, but I digress.
Kohler's book, as I said, takes place primarily in a girls' boarding school in South Africa in the 1960's (those looking for discussions about the political situation in South Africa will be disappointed; the social and racial issues are only hinted at and never addressed directly). The core group of characters are the twelve members of the school swimming team, who get a new member in Fiamma Coronna. Fiamma is an Italian aristocrat, and everyone is immediately fascinated by her - especially Miss G, the swimming teacher, whose fascination with Fiamma turns to obsession as the other girls become increasingly jealous. Sometime during that year, Fiamma disappeared in the countryside around the school, and the book unravels the mystery of what happened to her and why, interspersed with scenes of the girls returning to the school as middle-aged women.
I dunno, maybe I would have been more engrossed by the story if I hadn't known what happened to Fiamma already, thanks to the movie (but those who have seen the movie will still be surprised - the circumstances of Fiamma's death differ greatly in the book). Because I wasn't busy trying to figure out how Fiamma disappeared, I was able to focus on other aspects of the story. And some of the narrative choices Kohler made are...interesting. The book is narrated by an omnipresent "we" - which, I think, was a good choice. Instead of focusing on a single main character, Kohler makes the girls into one single group entity, which both reinforces the terrifying groupthink of the girls and emphasizes how they are all collectively responsible for what happened to Fiamma. There is no "I" or "she" to pin the tragedy on; everyone is guilty. That was good; less good is the fact that one of the girls is named Sheila Kohler. Who grows up to be a writer.
I have no idea what to make of this. On the one hand, it's an incredibly brave move to put yourself in a story like this, and to tie yourself so directly to the horrors committed in this book. On the other hand, it's weird, because "Sheila Kohler" is not the narrator of the book (the narrator is the mysterious "we"), so we're seeing her actions, as we see all the girls actions, from a removed distance. Is this Kohler's way of keeping herself at a safe distance from the events she recounts? And most importantly, is Kohler doing the Tim O'Brien thing where she makes herself a character in a fictional story to make it more real for the reader, or does this book mean that Sheila Kohler once ? I'm going with the first explanation, because that's the only way I'll be able to to sleep at night.
Other terrible narrative choices: some chapters are prefaced with a few lines of awful, awful poetry, like this one: "For Fiamma she could skim across the water,/As fast as could be,/For she was a prince's daughter,/And Miss G loved her most passionately." that are so awful I'm pretty sure Kohler wrote them that way intentionally, to mimic the awful poems we all wrote when we were fourteen. Which, fine, but it doesn't make them any more painful to read.
And the decision to show scenes of the women as adults returning to the school serves no fucking purpose. The movie adaptation wisely chose to get rid of this aspect, and it was a wise choice: by keeping the story focused on the girls as teenagers, we never have to see them growing up and dealing with what they did (although the movie still includes a scene where the girls start to understand what a terrible thing they've done - another reason the movie is superior). But even Kohler's book refuses to make this happen - what is the point of showing us these girls as adult women if they're not going to deal with what they did when they were teenagers? There's no reflection, no remorse, no discussion of what happened to Fiamma, and I don't understand the point of showing the women returning to the school.
This is the main reason I prefer the movie version: although it doesn't absolve the girls of their involvement in what happened to Fiamma, the movie places the majority of the blame where it should be: Miss G. Teenage girls and their psychotic cult-like cliques can be forgiven over time; Miss G was an adult who knew exactly what she was doing when she decided to ruin a teenage girl's life. And Movie Miss G is much more nuanced, revealing insecurities and mental instability beneath her carefully-crafted facade (the movie does a very clever thing where Miss G's hair, makeup, and clothing gradually become more messy and unpolished over the course of the movie as she unravels). Book Miss G is merely a cliche of a predatory older bull dyke who seduces young girls, like the worst nightmare of fundamentalists everywhere. Ugh. Book Miss G never answers for her part in Fiamma's disappearance, whereas Movie Miss G...you know what, just go watch the movie. That's what I want people to take from this review: go watch Cracks. Get your psychotic schoolgirl fix, and give Kohler's book a pass.
"'No inhibitions here! I will have no inhibitions here!' she said sternly. 'Repressions of libidinal urges only leads to aggression. Give me your secrets, girls, give me the dark depths of your hearts, and I will give you the light. Search your hearts, for the universe lies therein,' and we searched and searched. 'It is always more grubby than you think,' she added, and we nodded our heads, knowing she was right. She said there were certain subjects we should get out of the way, so that we could go about our business. She knew what we were thinking."
September 15, 2009
This is, hands down, among the worst books I have ever read. I have no idea what other people see in it. My gripes are many, but I'll try to limit them to things that people might find useful:
1) The narrative style -- it's written in first-person plural, which means the voice is always a "we", with no concrete sense of whom that includes. This makes is extremely difficult to conjure any sympathy for the narrator, which I imagine the reader should feel.
2) Lack of characterization -- This book is 165 pages, with 20 characters (not including the semi-omniscient "we"), which means that you get one personality trait or moment for each character. Consequently, it's difficult to care about any of them.
3) Missing the historical mark - Based on some vague clues, this book seems to take place in South Africa in the 1940s/50s at an all-white, all-girls school. Not a single mention of apartheid? Really?
4) Gratuitous homoeroticism -- other reviewers note the "honesty" about the girls' sexuality. Have any of these people ever BEEN 14-year-old girls? Did you really all strip naked around each other just for giggles -- repeatedly? Of course not. You were as self-conscious as the rest of us.
5) Insipid chapter titles: "Why Miss G Called Us to Her Room"; "Who Was Invited to the Feast and Why?" "What Miss G Said About Fiamma". If I can't deduce these points from the chapter, you haven't written a very good book.
I could go on about the laughably bad ending, the snippets of the worst and most useless poetry I have ever encountered, etc. Suffice it to say: the only reason I finished this book was because I was reading it for a book club. I threw it across the room in disgust no fewer than three times.
1) The narrative style -- it's written in first-person plural, which means the voice is always a "we", with no concrete sense of whom that includes. This makes is extremely difficult to conjure any sympathy for the narrator, which I imagine the reader should feel.
2) Lack of characterization -- This book is 165 pages, with 20 characters (not including the semi-omniscient "we"), which means that you get one personality trait or moment for each character. Consequently, it's difficult to care about any of them.
3) Missing the historical mark - Based on some vague clues, this book seems to take place in South Africa in the 1940s/50s at an all-white, all-girls school. Not a single mention of apartheid? Really?
4) Gratuitous homoeroticism -- other reviewers note the "honesty" about the girls' sexuality. Have any of these people ever BEEN 14-year-old girls? Did you really all strip naked around each other just for giggles -- repeatedly? Of course not. You were as self-conscious as the rest of us.
5) Insipid chapter titles: "Why Miss G Called Us to Her Room"; "Who Was Invited to the Feast and Why?" "What Miss G Said About Fiamma". If I can't deduce these points from the chapter, you haven't written a very good book.
I could go on about the laughably bad ending, the snippets of the worst and most useless poetry I have ever encountered, etc. Suffice it to say: the only reason I finished this book was because I was reading it for a book club. I threw it across the room in disgust no fewer than three times.
May 17, 2020
Cracks is one of five books I picked up at a charity bookshop shortly before lockdown began. It isn't a book I was looking for – I hadn't heard of it, or the author, before. Based on the blurb plus a scan of the first few pages, it struck me as something like
Picnic at Hanging Rock
(the hothouse atmosphere of an all-girls school; an unexplained disappearance) meets
The Virgin Suicides
(first-person plural narration, dreamy tone). The South African setting also interested me.
The school at the centre of the story sits alone amid the arid landscape of the veld. Indeed, it's so cut off from the world that the fact it's in South Africa is irrelevant in terms of social/political context. When the characters of Cracks are students, in what seems like the late 1950s, the curriculum puts a heavy emphasis on sports, and the girls of the swimming team are perceived as the cream of the crop. At the beginning of the book, 13 former members of the team gather for a reunion. Their memories are drawn back to the year a girl disappeared. The women narrate the story as a chorus; one of them is called Sheila Kohler. (Kohler has said that Cracks is not autobiographical, though she did attend a girls' boarding school in the middle of the veld and received a similar education to the characters in the book.)
In such an isolated location, with no male students or staff, it's no big surprise that the girls develop crushes – or, in their parlance, 'cracks' – on Miss G, their boyish swimming teacher. What is more surprising (and disturbing) is Miss G's behaviour towards the girls. She gives them alcohol, invites them to her room to play inappropriate games, picks favourites, and gives terrible advice. But it's with the arrival of a new student, the beautiful Italian aristocrat Fiamma Coronna, that things really escalate. Miss G becomes so obsessed with Fiamma that her behaviour ceases to be simply strange; it becomes outright stalking and, eventually, sexual assault. The swimming team, neglected by their idol, inevitably turn against the new girl.
Kohler's prose conjures up a beautiful, lucid, lonely world, the air 'sweet with honeysuckle, jasmine and orange peel', the lawns 'incandescent with heat and sheen', and a 'mist like gauze' hanging across the 'star-wild sky'. The narration also works well: the girls share so many experiences and feelings, it doesn't seem unnatural for them to speak as a chorus. The story is not quite as successful. It's believable that the girls would fall under the spell of Miss G as teenagers, but the horrible climax of the Fiamma plot didn't convince me, and nor did the characters' inability to confront any of this as adults. At this point, the lyrical style started to seem less of a considered choice and more like a smokescreen for an inadequate ending.
In the end, it reminded me most of Such Small Hands, and I also think the Virgin Suicides comparison stands... but personally, I didn't like either of those books. It has a bit of the 'author didn't know how to end the story' energy you sometimes find in debuts, though Kohler had in fact published two novels and two story collections before it. Until reading some other reviews I had no idea Cracks had been made into a movie (with Eva Green as Miss G); though I don't think the book is completely without merit, it seems the general consensus is that the film is better.
TinyLetter
The school at the centre of the story sits alone amid the arid landscape of the veld. Indeed, it's so cut off from the world that the fact it's in South Africa is irrelevant in terms of social/political context. When the characters of Cracks are students, in what seems like the late 1950s, the curriculum puts a heavy emphasis on sports, and the girls of the swimming team are perceived as the cream of the crop. At the beginning of the book, 13 former members of the team gather for a reunion. Their memories are drawn back to the year a girl disappeared. The women narrate the story as a chorus; one of them is called Sheila Kohler. (Kohler has said that Cracks is not autobiographical, though she did attend a girls' boarding school in the middle of the veld and received a similar education to the characters in the book.)
In such an isolated location, with no male students or staff, it's no big surprise that the girls develop crushes – or, in their parlance, 'cracks' – on Miss G, their boyish swimming teacher. What is more surprising (and disturbing) is Miss G's behaviour towards the girls. She gives them alcohol, invites them to her room to play inappropriate games, picks favourites, and gives terrible advice. But it's with the arrival of a new student, the beautiful Italian aristocrat Fiamma Coronna, that things really escalate. Miss G becomes so obsessed with Fiamma that her behaviour ceases to be simply strange; it becomes outright stalking and, eventually, sexual assault. The swimming team, neglected by their idol, inevitably turn against the new girl.
Kohler's prose conjures up a beautiful, lucid, lonely world, the air 'sweet with honeysuckle, jasmine and orange peel', the lawns 'incandescent with heat and sheen', and a 'mist like gauze' hanging across the 'star-wild sky'. The narration also works well: the girls share so many experiences and feelings, it doesn't seem unnatural for them to speak as a chorus. The story is not quite as successful. It's believable that the girls would fall under the spell of Miss G as teenagers, but the horrible climax of the Fiamma plot didn't convince me, and nor did the characters' inability to confront any of this as adults. At this point, the lyrical style started to seem less of a considered choice and more like a smokescreen for an inadequate ending.
In the end, it reminded me most of Such Small Hands, and I also think the Virgin Suicides comparison stands... but personally, I didn't like either of those books. It has a bit of the 'author didn't know how to end the story' energy you sometimes find in debuts, though Kohler had in fact published two novels and two story collections before it. Until reading some other reviews I had no idea Cracks had been made into a movie (with Eva Green as Miss G); though I don't think the book is completely without merit, it seems the general consensus is that the film is better.
TinyLetter
March 7, 2024
The fact that Vanity Fair called this book "erotic" is kind of disturbing. The students at this boarding school are fourteen years old. The swim team coach develops a sexually charged obsession with an incoming student, Fiamma, which makes the other girls on the team jealous. I think the writing style is a little "try hard" with the poetry and the collective "we" narrative but I was thoroughly engaged. It's sharp and fast-paced—completely unexpected developments. MAJOR TRIGGERS for child SA, bullying, and violence.
June 9, 2012
I saw the film “Cracks” and out of curiosity decided to read the book and found it to be more deviated from the movie than expected. As in the above description, the setting is in South Africa and Fiamma is an Italian girl from an aristocratic family. As a teenager, she enrolls in an isolated school with other girls her age but has little in common with them, and with the aid of a favored but abusive teacher, the situation degenerates into bullying and finally tragedy.
What I found interesting is how the story crosses so many layers in human culture that fulminates in the horrendous ending. Culture differences with Fiamma being from Italy, class difference with her wealthy background, and the way aristocracy sees commoners in their eyes; Fiamma wasn’t interested in the other girls, though she intended no ill will. However, being beautiful, rich, well read, and an excellent swimmer, everyone had some level of obsession with Fiamma.
The swimming teacher, Miss G, was the favorite of the girls because she made them feel special. But when she found Fiamma more special than everyone else, it drew the ire of them all, despite of her known mental instability. Miss G abused her position as teacher by manipulating the girls, abusing Fiamma and the other teachers turned a blind eye to the obvious behavior.
Last, but not least, is the ultimate breakdown of humanity by bullying kids not understanding the consequences of their actions. In the “Lord of the Flies” moment, the girls showed they were little different from animals as they degenerated into teenage bullies ganging up on a girl made to be a pariah because of jealousy; to be punished only by their own guilt as they aged. The lack of accountability to society of the crime is disturbing and opens the bare truth that young people do terrible things with few good answers regarding rule of law.
“Cracks” is a mesmerizing read, a bit laborious and devastating. The book adds many more elements than the film. Four stars!
What I found interesting is how the story crosses so many layers in human culture that fulminates in the horrendous ending. Culture differences with Fiamma being from Italy, class difference with her wealthy background, and the way aristocracy sees commoners in their eyes; Fiamma wasn’t interested in the other girls, though she intended no ill will. However, being beautiful, rich, well read, and an excellent swimmer, everyone had some level of obsession with Fiamma.
The swimming teacher, Miss G, was the favorite of the girls because she made them feel special. But when she found Fiamma more special than everyone else, it drew the ire of them all, despite of her known mental instability. Miss G abused her position as teacher by manipulating the girls, abusing Fiamma and the other teachers turned a blind eye to the obvious behavior.
Last, but not least, is the ultimate breakdown of humanity by bullying kids not understanding the consequences of their actions. In the “Lord of the Flies” moment, the girls showed they were little different from animals as they degenerated into teenage bullies ganging up on a girl made to be a pariah because of jealousy; to be punished only by their own guilt as they aged. The lack of accountability to society of the crime is disturbing and opens the bare truth that young people do terrible things with few good answers regarding rule of law.
“Cracks” is a mesmerizing read, a bit laborious and devastating. The book adds many more elements than the film. Four stars!
July 11, 2021
I adore novels about feral children following their instincts when they're still at an age where they have, at best, a sketchy understanding of civilized behavior.
Contemporary novels like Earthlings by Sayaka Murata and Real Life by Adeline Dieudonné and The Laws of the Skies come to mind, along with classics like The Mountain Lion and The Bad Seed.
I thought Cracks might be another book in this category, and it tries to be, but it misses the mark for me entirely. I found it grotesque, contrived, obvious, sensationalistic, and pointless.
Contemporary novels like Earthlings by Sayaka Murata and Real Life by Adeline Dieudonné and The Laws of the Skies come to mind, along with classics like The Mountain Lion and The Bad Seed.
I thought Cracks might be another book in this category, and it tries to be, but it misses the mark for me entirely. I found it grotesque, contrived, obvious, sensationalistic, and pointless.
November 20, 2023
i picked this book up because cracks (2009) starring eva green is one of my favorite dark academia movies. but, while it remains a favorite, a certain shade has been cast over my opinion of it by all the negative reviews of the source material claiming the adaptation is better. on the one hand i can understand that the peculiar narrative style and the shocking ending alienate and upset the readers who come here expecting a fairly straightforward story about a charismatic but predatory teacher getting her comeuppance. on the other hand i can't help but roll my eyes at people stomping their feet, complaining about how the focus was shifted away from the adult perpetrator, asking where remorse and reckoning are, demanding that the bottomless pit of violence gaping in the hearts of teenage girls make sense.
December 8, 2009
Beautifully written - incredibly scary and mesmerizing.
September 24, 2009
I read about this one in Vanity Fair. It is being made into a movie starring Eva Green (the sexy French woman from one of the recent Bond movies).
I found this little 165-pager really moving. I liked the use of the collective "we" as the narrator. The book was strangely moving for me. Even though these girls were so together and acted as a group in many ways, they were all hurting so much by being apart from their families. They all want the love and attention of Miss G so badly as some sort of replacement.
I was surprised by the cause of Fiamma's death. Even though the story hinted all along the way about the tragic ending, I really hoped it would turn out differently. I was surprised though that the girls, now back at the school as adults, did not atone more for their actions. Their regret and sorrow felt flat to me.
I would definitely recommend this book. Please read it so we can discuss it at length!
I found this little 165-pager really moving. I liked the use of the collective "we" as the narrator. The book was strangely moving for me. Even though these girls were so together and acted as a group in many ways, they were all hurting so much by being apart from their families. They all want the love and attention of Miss G so badly as some sort of replacement.
I was surprised by the cause of Fiamma's death. Even though the story hinted all along the way about the tragic ending, I really hoped it would turn out differently. I was surprised though that the girls, now back at the school as adults, did not atone more for their actions. Their regret and sorrow felt flat to me.
I would definitely recommend this book. Please read it so we can discuss it at length!
February 18, 2013
1.5 stars.
Cracks is one of those dream-like books that makes the reader walk around in a daze. If crafted correctly, such books can be amazing reading experiences, but unfortunately Cracks fell short. The writing with all the repeated phrases was hazy (though this perhaps enhanced the mood of the story). The way in which the book was framed as a memory being shared by the characters many years later didn't add to the story. I did enjoy the setting and the evocative descriptions. However, I questioned the plausibility of why parents would send their daughters to a remote, isolated boarding school in South Africa and other such incredulities. Since I had seen the movie first, the ending lost its punch for me and didn't disturb me in the intended way. As most other reviews have said, the movie version of Cracks is more finely tuned and actually tells the story in a more striking manner than the book.
Cracks is one of those dream-like books that makes the reader walk around in a daze. If crafted correctly, such books can be amazing reading experiences, but unfortunately Cracks fell short. The writing with all the repeated phrases was hazy (though this perhaps enhanced the mood of the story). The way in which the book was framed as a memory being shared by the characters many years later didn't add to the story. I did enjoy the setting and the evocative descriptions. However, I questioned the plausibility of why parents would send their daughters to a remote, isolated boarding school in South Africa and other such incredulities. Since I had seen the movie first, the ending lost its punch for me and didn't disturb me in the intended way. As most other reviews have said, the movie version of Cracks is more finely tuned and actually tells the story in a more striking manner than the book.
November 8, 2014
I watched the movie before reading the book. They are quite different, but not in a bad way.
First of all the setting is different: The movie takes place in GB (filming took place in Ireland) and the book is set in South Africa.
Some characters have different names (Rosie, Poppy, etc. in the movie), but it doesn't change the actual story.
I found the movie scene in which Fiamma (a Spanish student in the movie, Italian in the book) gets killed quite disturbing already, but in the book she gets raped by the girls before dying from the wounds (that is how I think she died). It was VERY disturbing to read the rape scene, because my guess was that she only disappeared in the book (and therefore escaped from the girls and Miss G) and that's it. But Kohler "outplayed" the finale of the movie by adding the gang rape scene.
I dislike the girls of Miss G's swimming team even more. It digusts me how jealousy (toward Fiamma's family background and her wealth) and hatred (toward Fiamma, because she didn't give in to Miss G's quite dubious approaches, in order to please the girls) changes you.
I might also add that I enjoyed both the movie and the book.
First of all the setting is different: The movie takes place in GB (filming took place in Ireland) and the book is set in South Africa.
Some characters have different names (Rosie, Poppy, etc. in the movie), but it doesn't change the actual story.
I found the movie scene in which Fiamma (a Spanish student in the movie, Italian in the book) gets killed quite disturbing already, but in the book she gets raped by the girls before dying from the wounds (that is how I think she died). It was VERY disturbing to read the rape scene, because my guess was that she only disappeared in the book (and therefore escaped from the girls and Miss G) and that's it. But Kohler "outplayed" the finale of the movie by adding the gang rape scene.
I dislike the girls of Miss G's swimming team even more. It digusts me how jealousy (toward Fiamma's family background and her wealth) and hatred (toward Fiamma, because she didn't give in to Miss G's quite dubious approaches, in order to please the girls) changes you.
I might also add that I enjoyed both the movie and the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 3, 2022
Picnic at Hanging Rock crossed with a lesbian Lord of the Flies.
October 10, 2012
I'd never heard of the author or the book, but I saw a reference to it in a comment on Dare Me and discovered the library at the U. had a copy so took a few hours off from Jojo Moyes to read it. As my rating indicates, I thought it a pretty good but not great school story. Exept for Miss G., the swim coach, the characters were not clearly drawn, and there were too many to follow in such a short book. The victim, Fiamma, never became real enough to care about what happened to her. Miss G. seemed largely made up of bits and pieces of Jean Brodie.
Setting was excellent, a girls' boarding school in South Africa in the days of the white Nationalist govenment. It's difficult to identify even the decade in whih the story takes place. South Africa in those days was trapped in a kind of cultural time warp and some of the references (e.g. Brigitte Bardot) dated from as long ago as the '50s. But I'd guess late '60s or early '70s.
As I understood it, a "crack" is a "crush" or a "pash"; Miss G. such a bad one for the new Italian girl on the swim team that the whole team plunge (okay, it's a swim team--I couldn't resist) into a losing streak (I didn't really believe that) and the girls want her to be nice to Miss G. so they can regain their form. It wasn't clear just how far she was supposed to go. The girls' jealousy (school stories almost always feature jealousy) leads to victimisation and rough-housing that gots very out of hand. If you've read Alex Marwood's The Wicked Girls you know what could have happened to the girls if a nasty prosecutor got on their case.
I can stil remember us discussing Keats' The Eve of St. Agnes in English class at my school so long ago, and how we were to distinguish between "sensuous"--which is okay and something literature was supposed to be--and "sensual"--which was, er, not all right--we were supposed to be Catholics. Still I was surprised that that trying to act out Keats' poem could turn schoolgirls into a bunch of Maenads straight out of Euripides. (Dionysus being present in the form of fermented pineapple juice. Ugh!)
For such a short book, Cracks unfolds very slowly. I'm probably over-rating it by one star, but I was grateful to add it to my school-stores shelf.
Setting was excellent, a girls' boarding school in South Africa in the days of the white Nationalist govenment. It's difficult to identify even the decade in whih the story takes place. South Africa in those days was trapped in a kind of cultural time warp and some of the references (e.g. Brigitte Bardot) dated from as long ago as the '50s. But I'd guess late '60s or early '70s.
As I understood it, a "crack" is a "crush" or a "pash"; Miss G. such a bad one for the new Italian girl on the swim team that the whole team plunge (okay, it's a swim team--I couldn't resist) into a losing streak (I didn't really believe that) and the girls want her to be nice to Miss G. so they can regain their form. It wasn't clear just how far she was supposed to go. The girls' jealousy (school stories almost always feature jealousy) leads to victimisation and rough-housing that gots very out of hand. If you've read Alex Marwood's The Wicked Girls you know what could have happened to the girls if a nasty prosecutor got on their case.
I can stil remember us discussing Keats' The Eve of St. Agnes in English class at my school so long ago, and how we were to distinguish between "sensuous"--which is okay and something literature was supposed to be--and "sensual"--which was, er, not all right--we were supposed to be Catholics. Still I was surprised that that trying to act out Keats' poem could turn schoolgirls into a bunch of Maenads straight out of Euripides. (Dionysus being present in the form of fermented pineapple juice. Ugh!)
For such a short book, Cracks unfolds very slowly. I'm probably over-rating it by one star, but I was grateful to add it to my school-stores shelf.
August 16, 2011
Hmm, this was good... but odd!!! Cracks is the tale of a group of young teenage girls at a South African boarding school back in the 60's. The weather is hot and dry, the school is isolated, and the girls don't have much in the way of strict supervision. The South African scenery was well-described, and I could absolutely feel the brutal summer heat radiating off the pages. Thirteen of the girls are chosen by Miss G to be on the swim team, including beautiful new-girl Fiamma, who keeps her distance and keeps to herself, never really becoming a part of the group. The story is told from a "we" perspective by one of the swim team members, some 40 years later, after the girls meet back at the school for a reunion. The narrator who is telling the story is none other than the author herself - which is odd, because this is a fictional book, supposedly. Sheila Kohler made herself one of the characters in the book (or at least someone of her own name) - not sure that I've ever seen that before!
All the girls on the swim team have what they call "cracks" (crushes) on Miss G, who is one strange and inappropriate lady, to say the least. Furthermore, all of the girls experiment sexually with each other, touching each other and running around naked. Does this really happen at all-girl schools??? I would like to know, because I have no idea how realistic the book is in that regard. The author is married (to a man) or else I would assume that she is a lesbian, since it's such a major theme in the book. I guess it is supposed to be erotic? In the midst of all of this, one of the girls goes missing, making the book part coming-of-age, part mystery. Everything was just a little strange and unfamiliar, including the writing style, but I still liked it!
All the girls on the swim team have what they call "cracks" (crushes) on Miss G, who is one strange and inappropriate lady, to say the least. Furthermore, all of the girls experiment sexually with each other, touching each other and running around naked. Does this really happen at all-girl schools??? I would like to know, because I have no idea how realistic the book is in that regard. The author is married (to a man) or else I would assume that she is a lesbian, since it's such a major theme in the book. I guess it is supposed to be erotic? In the midst of all of this, one of the girls goes missing, making the book part coming-of-age, part mystery. Everything was just a little strange and unfamiliar, including the writing style, but I still liked it!
March 22, 2023
this whole psychotic teenage girls thing didn't really land when a. no sense of reckoning to any of it (it's not even suggested the truth might be uncovered?), & b. no remorse to be seen! somehow this is just girls playing!
Rep: white South African cast, Black South African side characters, lesbian mc & side characters
CWs: period typical racism & homophobia, rape, implied teacher-student relationship, implied sexual harassment, murder
Rep: white South African cast, Black South African side characters, lesbian mc & side characters
CWs: period typical racism & homophobia, rape, implied teacher-student relationship, implied sexual harassment, murder
July 7, 2011
Reminds me so much of something that happened in real life that I was obsessed with for awhile...also of a few things I started writing and never finished. First book in like a YEAR that I found really hard to put down.
September 23, 2022
wow besties... what an ending
January 17, 2025
hv a LOT of criticisms just skip this, esp that awful ending...
February 1, 2019
At a remote boarding school in the South African veldt, the swimming teacher, Miss G, holds curious and erotic sway over the girls she chooses for the swimming team. Into their midst comes Fiamma, an Italian girl, perhaps from an aristocratic family. She wants nothing to do with her schoolmates, and is a fantastic freestyle swimmer. Girls in adolescence being taught by eccentric women. There is great atmosphere here, and wonderful depictions of the wildlife, the weather, the river, and the passion and tribalism of adolescence. During a long dry summer, and after a night of adolescent debauchery, Fiamma goes missing the next day. Forty years later, thirteen members of the missing girl's swimming team return to the school and look back at the long, dry weeks leading to Fiamma's disappearance, teenage memories and emotions resurfacing, and then the reliving of the horror of a long-buried secret.
Read
January 30, 2022This is a good read-alike if you enjoyed “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (similar plot) and “The Virgin Suicides” (similar tone). It’s not quite as literary as it thinks it is (I can’t tell if the bad poetry was bad on purpose), and the ending was a little sensationalist, but if you like derivative stories (this feels very much like it was written to fit in with a tradition—the all-girls school with a strong undercurrent of sexual tension—rather than to do something new), this is a quick, tight read.
August 29, 2011
Brilliantly dark and haunting. Fantastically written. One of the best books I've ever read, I couldn't put it down. I loved the first person plural and the lengthy descriptions of the South African landscape. Wonderfully creepy, and a shock of an ending. Pure brilliance.
February 3, 2025
Not going to pretend that I didn't absolutely eat this up. It's not going to be for everyone, but the setting and toxicity is something that I can't help being drawn to. Ending significantly more troubling than the film version, which was somewhat of a surprise to me.
August 28, 2013
Cross The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie with Lord of the Flies and set it in Australia and you have Cracks. Riveting and worth every word, not that there are many.
Read
March 10, 2018I enjoyed the assortment of narrative techniques -- a detective's interrogation, a series of vingettes, a poem slowly revealed. I appreciated the use of the first person plural, like in The Virgin Suicides.
The ending to the book was abrupt and not what I was expecting, probably the point. I found the resolution to the mystery confusing and the specific actions unfounded. It felt as though there was too much focus on sex for shock value. The ending brought down five stars to four, and maybe less.
The ending to the book was abrupt and not what I was expecting, probably the point. I found the resolution to the mystery confusing and the specific actions unfounded. It felt as though there was too much focus on sex for shock value. The ending brought down five stars to four, and maybe less.
December 14, 2017
well this was absolutely horrifying. definitely a big cw for rape/molestation. beautiful writing but i just wasn't expecting that
February 8, 2019
I didn't mind this book, but I found it a bit disappointing. I was shocked towards the end and so I hoped that something worse would happen at the very end.
April 19, 2014
ETA: I found my original review! YAY! So skip ahead to the more in-depth one
I wrote a semi-long review as to why Cracks was just so utterly underwhelming...However, I can't for the life of me find that damn review. I have no idea what file in my many computer files, I stashed it in. So, here's the gist:
The book: meh. The author inserts a character with her name in it, which I found self-indulgent. Characters: double meh because they're pretty much all depth-less souls doing crazy, shitty things. Plot: Okay.
Movie: Amazing. The acting was spot-on. The script took the interesting plot, fixed it up, and added things that just made the characters shine. You have the meh villain in the book, and you're given a reason as to why she is how she is in the movie. In the book, you see a villain, in the movie you see a complicated, troubled woman (who's played by the lovely Eva Green) who you are both repulsed and enchanted by (before you find out how disturbing and pretty much bat shit crazy she is. The filmmakers take a mediocre book and turn it into a wonderful movie.
So, in conclusion: skip the mediocre book, watch the amazeballs movie.
Getting right into it, I picked up the novel Cracks after I found out that the film, which I had not yet seen but wanted to, was based on it. Read the book in a couple of hours, then watched the film the next day. I have to say that Cracks is one of those rare exceptions where the movie surpasses the book in every way.
Usually the way things work when a movie is based on the book is that the movie a lot of the time winds up falling flat when compared to its original source. It makes sense when you consider that (unless it's a mini series), the filmmakers are trying to condense a book into a 2 hour movie. However, seeing as how Cracks was a pretty short book, I found that the opposite happened. I found the characters much more intriguing in the movie than in the book.
Take for example the character of Fiamma. She comes off very aloof and somewhat superior in the book. It makes sense when you consider that Cracks is narrated in the first person by one of the girls on the swimming team, while in a flashback. Clearly, the narrator would view Fiamma as superior to rationalize her (as well as the group's) actions towards the end of the book. However, as a reader, you don't get the sense that you know anything about Fiamma. While it's impossible not to sympathize with her considering what happens, you get to see more of Fiamma's essence in the movie. So, when the end came, I was left feeling equally heartbroken in both the movie and the book, but whereas I felt heartbroken as to what happened to a child in the book, in the movie I was heartbroken as to what happened to Fiamma.
Miss G. is another character that was particularly one-note in Cracks. While reading, I was kind of baffled as to why all of these girls seemed so infatuated with her. We don't know much about her in the book, only that she's really manipulative. However, in the film version you get a way more complex character. You get to see how these girls fall in love with her (hell, at the beginning I think even I was in love with her), you get to see the depth of her villianness, but you also get a multi-faceted character who while equally mysterious in both the film and the book, is also someone who is endlessly fascinating to analyze (now a disclaimer in which I say that her infatuation and subsequent behavior in regards to Fiamma was disgusting and I don't condone anything she did in either the book or the movie. But she was a damn intriguing character).
Also one random thing that bugged me in the book version of Cracks was the fact that the author infiltrated herself into the novel. I understand basing a character on yourself, but once you give that character your full name, I'm inclined to believe that it's a little more than self-indulgent.
Overall, I found Cracks to be extremely disappointing. It was a book that had enormous potential due to it's taboo plot, but it just fell short. Hell, it WAS short. 165 pages full of characters that at the end of the day, you realize you don't care much about...whereas in the movie I found that I cared about all of them even Miss G. (again, I'm well aware of how monstrous her actions were. Damn, Eva Green and her fantastic acting for making me feel slightly bad for Miss G). So, if you're given the choice as to read Cracks or watch Cracks, pick the film every single time. Powerful movie, disappointing book.
The book: meh. The author inserts a character with her name in it, which I found self-indulgent. Characters: double meh because they're pretty much all depth-less souls doing crazy, shitty things. Plot: Okay.
Movie: Amazing. The acting was spot-on. The script took the interesting plot, fixed it up, and added things that just made the characters shine. You have the meh villain in the book, and you're given a reason as to why she is how she is in the movie. In the book, you see a villain, in the movie you see a complicated, troubled woman (who's played by the lovely Eva Green) who you are both repulsed and enchanted by (before you find out how disturbing and pretty much bat shit crazy she is. The filmmakers take a mediocre book and turn it into a wonderful movie.
So, in conclusion: skip the mediocre book, watch the amazeballs movie.
Getting right into it, I picked up the novel Cracks after I found out that the film, which I had not yet seen but wanted to, was based on it. Read the book in a couple of hours, then watched the film the next day. I have to say that Cracks is one of those rare exceptions where the movie surpasses the book in every way.
Usually the way things work when a movie is based on the book is that the movie a lot of the time winds up falling flat when compared to its original source. It makes sense when you consider that (unless it's a mini series), the filmmakers are trying to condense a book into a 2 hour movie. However, seeing as how Cracks was a pretty short book, I found that the opposite happened. I found the characters much more intriguing in the movie than in the book.
Take for example the character of Fiamma. She comes off very aloof and somewhat superior in the book. It makes sense when you consider that Cracks is narrated in the first person by one of the girls on the swimming team, while in a flashback. Clearly, the narrator would view Fiamma as superior to rationalize her (as well as the group's) actions towards the end of the book. However, as a reader, you don't get the sense that you know anything about Fiamma. While it's impossible not to sympathize with her considering what happens, you get to see more of Fiamma's essence in the movie. So, when the end came, I was left feeling equally heartbroken in both the movie and the book, but whereas I felt heartbroken as to what happened to a child in the book, in the movie I was heartbroken as to what happened to Fiamma.
Miss G. is another character that was particularly one-note in Cracks. While reading, I was kind of baffled as to why all of these girls seemed so infatuated with her. We don't know much about her in the book, only that she's really manipulative. However, in the film version you get a way more complex character. You get to see how these girls fall in love with her (hell, at the beginning I think even I was in love with her), you get to see the depth of her villianness, but you also get a multi-faceted character who while equally mysterious in both the film and the book, is also someone who is endlessly fascinating to analyze (now a disclaimer in which I say that her infatuation and subsequent behavior in regards to Fiamma was disgusting and I don't condone anything she did in either the book or the movie. But she was a damn intriguing character).
Also one random thing that bugged me in the book version of Cracks was the fact that the author infiltrated herself into the novel. I understand basing a character on yourself, but once you give that character your full name, I'm inclined to believe that it's a little more than self-indulgent.
Overall, I found Cracks to be extremely disappointing. It was a book that had enormous potential due to it's taboo plot, but it just fell short. Hell, it WAS short. 165 pages full of characters that at the end of the day, you realize you don't care much about...whereas in the movie I found that I cared about all of them even Miss G. (again, I'm well aware of how monstrous her actions were. Damn, Eva Green and her fantastic acting for making me feel slightly bad for Miss G). So, if you're given the choice as to read Cracks or watch Cracks, pick the film every single time. Powerful movie, disappointing book.
July 27, 2021
I read this entirely in one sitting by accident. This was a compelling (and short) read and has left me a lot to think about. There were some interesting choices in this book that I liked (particularly plural narrator, "we" rather than an individual "I") but a couple other things that I was kind of meh about:
- framing narrative is kind of unnecessary -- not sure why we needed or wanted to see these women 40 years later especially since not all their characters are fleshed out. There's also no real resolution to this aspect of the story even though it seems like there should be; not that a redemption arc is needed or anything, but if you're going to reintroduce the characters as adults, you might as well do something with that and the power of memory. If the story had been more interwoven with this framing narrative, that might've been something, but as it stands it's just kind of dropped in there and then revisited a couple times
- too many girls on the team - only five or six are really given character stuff to do so I'm not sure why it was so big in the first place; this could've easily been cut down to no detriment
- I do wish there had been a bit more of the school at large/other classmates, which I know is counter to the point I just made, but it made me wonder if this happened to any of the previous girls on the team who were then subsequently dumped. I also couldn't fully tell how the other teachers at the school thought of Miss G and whether or not they thought she was weird/culty or if they were like "well guess girls will be girls." I like the mystery around it, but at the same time I don't think this kind of clarification would've been a detriment to the narrative
- not entirely sure what the metafictional element of Sheila Kohler being a girl on the team provided -- I thought it was going to be like a commentary on observing and not interceding for art but she's not even really a character, so it felt superfluous after all that
- some weird racialized language around Meg's character who is Asian, which felt notable since this takes place in South Africa during the 50s (?) and felt like it was going to make more statements about race, but then it just... didn't really do that. Would have LOVED to see how the setting affected the story more but it didn't seem Kohler was interested in that aspect
I will say: I am someone who listens to a lot of true crime stuff and ergo I sometimes come across as desensitized to stories like this (I've listened to a lot of stories about people being decapitated etc because I'm terrible). What happens to Fiamma in this book is genuinely horrifying and made my chest seize. So I guess props to Kohler for making that gruesome.
- framing narrative is kind of unnecessary -- not sure why we needed or wanted to see these women 40 years later especially since not all their characters are fleshed out. There's also no real resolution to this aspect of the story even though it seems like there should be; not that a redemption arc is needed or anything, but if you're going to reintroduce the characters as adults, you might as well do something with that and the power of memory. If the story had been more interwoven with this framing narrative, that might've been something, but as it stands it's just kind of dropped in there and then revisited a couple times
- too many girls on the team - only five or six are really given character stuff to do so I'm not sure why it was so big in the first place; this could've easily been cut down to no detriment
- I do wish there had been a bit more of the school at large/other classmates, which I know is counter to the point I just made, but it made me wonder if this happened to any of the previous girls on the team who were then subsequently dumped. I also couldn't fully tell how the other teachers at the school thought of Miss G and whether or not they thought she was weird/culty or if they were like "well guess girls will be girls." I like the mystery around it, but at the same time I don't think this kind of clarification would've been a detriment to the narrative
- not entirely sure what the metafictional element of Sheila Kohler being a girl on the team provided -- I thought it was going to be like a commentary on observing and not interceding for art but she's not even really a character, so it felt superfluous after all that
- some weird racialized language around Meg's character who is Asian, which felt notable since this takes place in South Africa during the 50s (?) and felt like it was going to make more statements about race, but then it just... didn't really do that. Would have LOVED to see how the setting affected the story more but it didn't seem Kohler was interested in that aspect
I will say: I am someone who listens to a lot of true crime stuff and ergo I sometimes come across as desensitized to stories like this (I've listened to a lot of stories about people being decapitated etc because I'm terrible). What happens to Fiamma in this book is genuinely horrifying and made my chest seize. So I guess props to Kohler for making that gruesome.
July 7, 2017
I want to rate it higher because of the things I *did* like about it, but the aspects I didn't like make it impossible for me to do so.
I do have to say that I loved the cultish/hivemind writing style. I like that it's written in a way where you're not sure who the narrator is, and it gives off the feeling that the book is written by a group of girls who act as one. That's probably the *only* thing that I liked about this.
But the problems are huge:
1. There is no explanation for why the girls were obsessed with Miss G; there's no background for why this is, especially when she's written to be so abusive. Her only redeeming quality is that she allowed the girls to break rules.
2. Fiamma is entirely flat, which could be functional but comes off feeling as if they hate her for no reason other than she's new.
3. They're glorifying rape and abuse. Somehow, none of the girls even remotely question what Miss G is doing to her students; they just automatically feel envious of her attention toward Fiamma (thus inflaming point 2).
4. Fuzzie is the one character in the book who could be sympathetic toward Fiamma, but she's written as being mentally unwell (she's "always confused" as a teenager, she comes from a family that has suicide/mental illness, she's spent time in an asylum). That's massively uncomfortable.
5. The author wrote herself into her book? Like, I was massively thrown off when 'Sheila Kohler' existed as a character (who, shockingly, becomes an author! Who knew).
I'm not sure how this is like Lord of the Flies (as explained by other reviews, especially those on the book's cover) unless you think that novel was 100% just "group of boys torture and kill one," which it wasn't.
If there were more discussion about the problematic aspects of the book, where the girls didn't directly kill Fiamma (for no functioning reason), where they discussed how women like Miss G are a problem and how the girls recognised that they misread the situation and ohgod! What have we done? I could have liked this book.
Kohler missed... a lot of places where she could've made something lovely.
I do have to say that I loved the cultish/hivemind writing style. I like that it's written in a way where you're not sure who the narrator is, and it gives off the feeling that the book is written by a group of girls who act as one. That's probably the *only* thing that I liked about this.
But the problems are huge:
1. There is no explanation for why the girls were obsessed with Miss G; there's no background for why this is, especially when she's written to be so abusive. Her only redeeming quality is that she allowed the girls to break rules.
2. Fiamma is entirely flat, which could be functional but comes off feeling as if they hate her for no reason other than she's new.
3. They're glorifying rape and abuse. Somehow, none of the girls even remotely question what Miss G is doing to her students; they just automatically feel envious of her attention toward Fiamma (thus inflaming point 2).
4. Fuzzie is the one character in the book who could be sympathetic toward Fiamma, but she's written as being mentally unwell (she's "always confused" as a teenager, she comes from a family that has suicide/mental illness, she's spent time in an asylum). That's massively uncomfortable.
5. The author wrote herself into her book? Like, I was massively thrown off when 'Sheila Kohler' existed as a character (who, shockingly, becomes an author! Who knew).
I'm not sure how this is like Lord of the Flies (as explained by other reviews, especially those on the book's cover) unless you think that novel was 100% just "group of boys torture and kill one," which it wasn't.
If there were more discussion about the problematic aspects of the book, where the girls didn't directly kill Fiamma (for no functioning reason), where they discussed how women like Miss G are a problem and how the girls recognised that they misread the situation and ohgod! What have we done? I could have liked this book.
Kohler missed... a lot of places where she could've made something lovely.
November 16, 2017
"Picnic at Hanging Rock meets Lord of the Flies" exclaims a review on the back of my book edition. I think that's a fair description. Something in the atmosphere reminds me of the one in Picnic, with the heat, beauty and claustraphobia. Something in the power plays reminds me of Lord of the flies.
Like many I watched the film adaption before I read the book, and I think they are a well functioning duo, they complement each other. They focus on various themes and scenes, that to me are all equally important.
Cracks is told with a dreamily daze and in a way I felt distant from the characters, especially as individuals. Love the "we" perspective, it strenghtens the girl team as a unit. It's like the individual girl and her tale matters less than the group -- apart from Fiamma, who is the white dove among common sparrows. She is an interestering character, driven by her home-sickness, shifting between carelessness and indifference towards her class mates and miss G, and telling extraordinary tales from Italy.
Miss G is too an interesting character, but I wish we were told more about her. There is a point with briefness, but sometimes it leads to a lack of something. Her obsession with Fiamma is dark and uncanny, especially considering the power imbalance of their position and Fiamma's vulnerability. It's painful to read how miss G, no matter how lonely she is too, takes advantage of that.
The writing reminds me of broken glass, crushed flowers and underwater images. The themes are horrifying and poetic at the same time, the characters feels like glass figures with beating hearts living in an abandoned doll house surrounded by vivid nature. They are together, but still apart, left each to their own with their dreams and night mares.
Like many I watched the film adaption before I read the book, and I think they are a well functioning duo, they complement each other. They focus on various themes and scenes, that to me are all equally important.
Cracks is told with a dreamily daze and in a way I felt distant from the characters, especially as individuals. Love the "we" perspective, it strenghtens the girl team as a unit. It's like the individual girl and her tale matters less than the group -- apart from Fiamma, who is the white dove among common sparrows. She is an interestering character, driven by her home-sickness, shifting between carelessness and indifference towards her class mates and miss G, and telling extraordinary tales from Italy.
Miss G is too an interesting character, but I wish we were told more about her. There is a point with briefness, but sometimes it leads to a lack of something. Her obsession with Fiamma is dark and uncanny, especially considering the power imbalance of their position and Fiamma's vulnerability. It's painful to read how miss G, no matter how lonely she is too, takes advantage of that.
The writing reminds me of broken glass, crushed flowers and underwater images. The themes are horrifying and poetic at the same time, the characters feels like glass figures with beating hearts living in an abandoned doll house surrounded by vivid nature. They are together, but still apart, left each to their own with their dreams and night mares.
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