Leda and the Swan

by Anna Caritj

Anna Caritj's LEDA AND THE SWAN, about a female college student who wakes after a wild Halloween frat party to find she isn't exactly sure what happened with the guy she went home with, and can't recall the last words she spoke to the classmate who now seems to be missing; pitched as having elements of "Prep," "Cat Person," and "The Secret History," a novel about infatuation, sex, consent, risk, regret, power, and one woman's search for answers about her future.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Dark Academia, Friendship, Literary Fiction

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 4, 2021

Reviews

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 ½ stars (rounded up because tis' a debut)

Alas, campus novels are my achilles heel (when will i learn?).

“Perhaps this not knowing was the thrill of it: the mystery, the risk.”

Leda and the Swan is an ambitious debut novel that sadly misses the mark.
From its tired premise to its one-note characters, Leda and the Swan feels like a wasted opportunity. Not only does the novel sacrifice character and plot in favour of subject matter but the author's commentary on sexual assault feels at best simplified, at worst, well, let me just say that it does it no favours.
If you are looking for some thought-provoking, nuanced and unsparing accounts of sexual assault I would recommend you give this novel a pass and try instead Lacy Crawford's memoir on her experiences of sexual assault at an elite boarding school in New Hampshire or Michaela Coel's heart-wrenching series, I May Destroy You (words cannot describe how i feel about this series). If you are instead happy to read a frustratingly patronizing narrative that succeeds in evoking and criticising the sorority lifestyle, well, you might be able to appreciate Leda and the Swan more than I did (be warned, the book is basically all filler and no, i would not describe this as dark academia, let alone compare this to tsh, as if).

Leda and the Swan opens with a long party-sequence. It's Halloween and Leda, a third-year student and member of the Psi Delta sorority, is off to a party. She's kind of looking forward to seeing her new crush Ian but a few drinks in finds herself just going with the flow of the party. She talks with strangers, feels kind of sick, and ends up having what seems like a 'moment' with a girl wearing a swan costume (get it? Leda and the swan? Ah.) who claims to know her from somewhere. When Leda wakes up on Monday she can't recall how the night ended: did she sleep with Ian? Why is her lip busted? Then Leda learns that the girl she spoke to has gone missing and (as these missing-girls stories tend to go) she becomes increasingly obsessed by her 'disappearance'.

In spite of this missing person angle, this novel is by no means suspenseful or even captivating. First things firsts: this kind of missing girl storyline has been done to death (A Prayer for Travelers, Please See Us, Restoration Heights, All the Missing Girls and many more;here you can read an interesting article on this trend). While I don't think that this trope is bad per se I am not keen on books that do nothing new with it. And Leda and the Swan repeatedly failed to subvert my expectations. This is the classic story that is less about the girl gone missing than about our main character projecting whatever is going on with her onto that missing girl. And I wouldn't have minded if Leda had actually come out of this novel feeling like a multi-dimensional person rather than say a sounding board.
She's so woefully naive that any kind of doubt or idea that goes through her head has to be inspected, dissected, examined, and reexamined because she just doesn't know things. And rather than presenting us with piercing observations, we get a series of simplified quasi-rhetorical questions (“Had Charlotte sensed it happening? Had Charlotte known?” or “Who was she expecting? Mary, shaking her head? Carly, making some lewd hand gesture? Was she expecting Ian to be there, rushing up the stairs after her?” or “Why shouldn’t she have made a scene? she thought. If she didn’t like something, why shouldn’t she scream?” or “Was it possible? Leda asked herself.”).
Not only did I find this pattern of questions repetitive but the kind of questions they pose are very basic. It gave me the impression that the author was addressing the kind of audience that needed to be gently convinced that Leda's reactions & fears are valid. I also grew tired by the huge quantiles of 'maybes' and 'perhapses' that are implemented by the narrative (“Maybe she had been wrong. Wrong to assume that all her friends wanted was gossip. Maybe they would face the monster with her.” or “Maybe knowing yourself wasn’t as easy as it sounded.” or “Perhaps her “true” voice was so low that even she couldn’t hear it.”). Certain 'important' phrases are also repeated ad nauseam (the author doesn't go for subtlety nor does she trust her readers to actually remember what was said a few pages prior). The author also has to repeatedly remind us that her ringtone is 'Dancing Queen'.

The narrative uses Leda's blackout as a source of tension. Did she have sex with Ian or did he force himself on her? Which, is not exactly great. Especially when we eventually learn what happened. Even if it takes Leda forever to bring herself to ask Ian what went down between them, I, and probably many other readers, already know. Which made much of her narrative moot. She remains a one-dimensional character, a generic stand-in for a 'regular gal' who just wants to fit in. She's given a Sad Backstory™ which is really poorly developed. Her mother died, and she is still grieving her loss. Yet, we never really learn anything substantial about Leda's mother or the bond they shared. The narrative portrays Leda as this 'lost' and complex character but she is just one of those things. She doesn't know what she wants, she gives really mixed signals, and she does some straight-up questionable things. Something about the way she behaved towards her sisters was particularly grating as she whines that they don't care enough about her to check on her but she doesn't really check on them either. Pot kettle much?

Her misreading of the people around her, Ian especially, was so fucking frustrating. Speaking of Ian, the guy was also severely lacking in depth. He is a mere plot device in Leda's narrative. His characterization was both vague and inconsistent.
Going back to Leda, the only interesting thing about her, well, that would be her name. That's it. Other than that she is just a vehicle through which the author can address serious topics in an oversimplified & condescending manner. Her supposed 'connection' with the missing girl is bollocks. Charlotte never emerges as a fully realised being either, but her disappearance allows Leda to 'realise' how easy it is for girls to be assaulted and or killed (because you need someone actually disappearing to understand that).

The story doesn't really present us with a nuanced discussion about sexual assault and consent, let alone victim-blaming or slut-shaming, focusing instead on depicting these very long scenes in which Leda interacts with her horrible 'sisters', or angsts over Ian, or talks to rando college students who aren't particularly memorable or realistic but convey a certain type of 'personality (so we have the mean girls, the hippy lot, the alternative girls, the frat bros).

Leda's navel-gazing (she spend much of the narrative wondering whether the word 'disappeared' should be used to describe Charlotte's, you guessed it, 'disappearance'). The novel ends up also doing the classic 'girls like Leda' are just more genuine than say her Barbie sisters. Case in point, the only 'sister' who is portrayed in a favourable light is Mary, who is deemed 'weird' by the others. Puh-lease. Not this Not Like Other Girls bullshit again. I am so done with this kind of narrative. While Leda's 'concern' for Charlotte is made to seem as 'genuine', her sisters' activism is far more performative in nature. The story is not even particularly satisfying in showing how herd mentality works, or why Leda is so eager to be part of this collective.

The story is possibly set in the late 2000s but I can't be too sure. I only suppose so because of the way they spoke (a lot of non-pc stuff), the music they listen to (eminem, amy winehouse), and someone has a flip phone. The novel doesn't really address how privileged Leda and most of her sisters are. At the beginning the narrative offhandedly remarks that Leda's sorority favours white girls, but the story doesn't really go into this. It also bugged me that one of two of the characters of color, who happens to be Pakistani, is portrayed as basically a 'princess' (her life outside school is described as 'regal' and she once wore a bikini made of actual gold...). Also, this character dismisses the fact that Charlotte is Chinese-American, saying that "Charlotte’s white, basically" and no one (Leda nor any characters in the narrative) challenges this.
Anyway, Leda is made to seem as if she is this walking tragedy but I really really really wanted her to once acknowledge her privilege (she's white, straight, cis, and has at least more than one person who clearly cares for her).

The whole mystery storyline is obsolete and I really hated how Leda is made into the person who figures it out (when in reality someone just explains things to her). The postcards she steals early on from Charlotte's home (yeah, talk about crossing the line) were ludicrous and sounded as if they were generated by a Tumblr bot and we also get an obvious Chekhov's gun...

I can safely say that this novel could have been easily cut in half. The 'best' thing about this novel is that it has a strong sense of place and that it does capture college culture (the parties & drinking, the pressure to belong to a group & or to be a fun person). But other than that, yeah...I don't have many positive things to say about it. The author's storytelling is flat and I think that those long sequences would have suited a tv series/film more.
I was actually tempted to DNF this early on and I wish I'd trusted my instincts.


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[Meike · Rating 1 out of 5]

German: Flüchtige Freunde
Listen, I love me some college novels: The Secret History, I am Charlotte Simmons, Normal People ... but THIS? Nope. Our protagonist Leda is a third-year college student at Big U, USA. She still griefs her mother who passed away during her senior year in high school and tries to numb the pain with booze and sex. One night at a Halloween party, she gets drunk and afterwards wonders whether she had sex with sexy Ian (without consent, because she was so intoxicated). At the same party, she meets Charlotte Mask (oh-ha, what does she mask?) who is dressed up as a swan and drives away with a skeleton - she disappears and Leda tries to find out what happened to her.

For your background: In Greek mythology, the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces and rapes Leda (see also W.B. Yeats' sonnet Leda and the Swan) - but it's not like that metaphorical level is played out particularly well. Questions of consent and identity are pondered in the most obvious way possible, the book is painfully repetitive, and it is way, way, way too long: This could have been a good short story. Where was the editor?

This debut author would have deserved more assistance and better advice on how to improve her first novel.

[Marta :} · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
The premise was great, but the mystery dragged for way too long.

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had such a great premise and yet was unbelievably boring. Literally two or three conversations would have cleared things up, but the main character has no agency. Great premise gone wrong, IMHO.

[Samra · Rating 3 out of 5]

the premise? amazing.
but the execution? :/
I know other reviewers have mentioned this and I completely agree: this mystery was solved by a single conversation that happened to occur later on in the book. Seriously, if they had had this one singular and very important convo beforehand, the mystery would’ve been solved. I felt as though it dragged on in parts and it just didn’t keep me hooked. I will say that the writing is very very good, though!

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dieser Roman besteht aus vielen guten Ideen, jedoch auch losen Strängen, die nie zueinander fanden. Meine Erwartungen waren durch die spannend klingende Inhaltsangabe geweckt, aber wohl etwas zu hoch, denn ich muss gestehen, ich war enttäuscht. Viele interessante Ideen wurden kurz gestreift, haben sich dann aber im Sande verlaufen. Was übrig blieb war ein Text, der (im Original) mehr Lektorat gebraucht hätte: Zu viele Beschreibungen von nicht relevanten Dingen, nur lose Enden, viele Themen, die kaum bis gar nicht besprochen wurden, ein Roman, in dem auch die Figuren nicht konsequent ausgearbeitet sind, ebenso der Plot. Leider keine Empfehlung meinerseits, da es für mich einfach zu flach war. Schade, denn ich habe mich wirklich auf dieses Buch gefreut. Anzumerken ist jedoch, dies ist der Debüt-Roman der Autorin, und die Ideen haben mir gefallen, nur die Ausführung leider nicht. Ich würde daher wieder zu einem Buch der Autorin greifen. Doch dieser Roman war leider wahrlich flüchtig.

[Anika · Rating 1 out of 5]

Das klingt vom Themenmix her richtig spannend, enttäuscht dann aber, da keine dieser versprochenen Teaser einhalten wird. Kaum ausgearbeitet, dazu leider auch noch langweilig, schade!

Mehr zum Buch in unserer ausführlichen Besprechung @ Papierstau Podcast: Folge 258: Post von Papierstau

[Heather Densmore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very unsatisfying. Was there really a mystery to it? It just drags on and on.

[Lauren Hopkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was...not good. At all. Touted as the next Prep or The Secret History, it's nothing like either. There are some campus vibes and a mystery but it's just not well-written at all, there's no real atmosphere, you can't tell any of the supporting characters apart because they are so one-note, and one of the "mysteries" could have been solved within the second chapter of the book had Leda, the main character, just asked one person one question...a question she later asks hundreds of pages later to solve things. I just truly do not understand the point of this when this same basic story has been done a million times, and so much better. Painful to get through, and I wish I was a quitter because this didn't even have any payoff at the end...I would have been fine dropping it and never thinking about it again.

[CR · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a debut novel I was incredibly impressed. This one kept me engaged throughout the story. There were a few times where the pacing was a tiny bit slow but not enough to bother me. Leda wakes up after a frat party unable to remember much of the night and finds her lip cut and a girl that she spoke to missing. As she goes through the next few weeks trying to piece everything together we get to tackle several hard subjects such as sorority/frat life, drinking/drugs, sexual conscent, and a missing person. I felt this was done tastefully. Overall I loved this story and can't wait to read more from this author.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happened to Charlotte? That's what Leda is obsessing over in this topical novel set on a college campus. Leda wakes up after a Halloween Party and can't remember what happened. Not to Charlotte and not to herself. Did she have sex with Ian? Did he assault her? What she discovers might not be surprising but Caritj does a nice job with the atmospherics. The tension ramps up slowly. The fact that Leda is mourning her mother is a thread that could have been explored more. Thanks to edelweiss for the ARC. Caritj's MFA shows in the writing.

[Savannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

TLDR; “I talked to a girl once and then she went missing so I had a weird break from reality where everyone is plotting against me and I have to solve her case but also Idc about that woman who’s missing but it’s all about me and how bad it is that I talked to this girl once and no one even knows it but it’s so bad that she’s missing but also I can’t believe no one cares about me. “ also describes all of the scenery always even when it doesn’t matter.

[Novel Visits · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I just didn't care for this story. I kept going and finished the book, but to be honest, I should probably have DNF'd it. This just wasn't the book for me, but I'm sure others will enjoy it.

I've chosen not to review this book on any other platforms.

[EC · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It wasn’t as simple as everyone made it out in childhood, how they asked you what you wanted to be, as if that were the only decision you’d be making. They never told you about the in-between choices. They never said you’d be deciding if and how much to drink; deciding where to draw the line between flirtation and harassment, between fun and scary; deciding whether or not to trust somebody.”

LEDA AND THE SWAN is an eerie yet contemplative look at rape culture and coming of age while grieving. Leda, a sorority girl at a small college on the East Coast, goes to a typical Halloween party. She wakes up the next morning with a bloody lip, little memory of the night before, and news of a young woman gone missing - Charlotte, whom Leda had seen leaving the party, dressed as a swan. Leda begins to look into Charlotte’s disappearance, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with advances from Ian, a boy she’s not sure she slept with on Halloween night, and identifying more with Charlotte as she learns about her.

Some mixed feelings & thoughts:
- This novel is billed partially as a thriller, partially as A SECRET HISTORY with a #MeToo twist. While it is very ominous and engaging, and there are some dark academia vibes, it’s a more meditative, character-focused novel, existential in moments, and the central mystery’s resolution isn’t what ties the novel together.
- I think the author does a good job of drawing attention to what many consider banal, expected experiences in college - aggressive approaches from men, blacking out and waking up uncertain what happened, difficulty talking about sex or consent - and highlight what’s toxic there. I also appreciated the ways Caritj shows how deeply Leda is saturated - maybe indoctrinated in a good word - with this mindset, how discomfort and aversion are normalized: “this fear was nearly indistinguishable from the excitement she had felt moments earlier.”
- Leda’s heightened fear and anxiety, her inability to focus, her increasing paranoia - in this novel, because of a specific incident - is analogous to the constant hypervigilance that women and other marginalized genders & sexualities experience living in our rape culture-saturated society.
- In one way it’s a coming of age story, as Leda learns what lurks in the dark and mourns the loss of the illusion of childhood safety - but in another way, the death of her mother has already forced Leda into a premature adulthood, playing at being a carefree college girl, imitating her sorority sisters on the surface while her lonely, unmoored reality roils beneath.
- The writing was strong. There’s a lot of imagery that parallels Leda’s internal world and the external plot: a female goat, violently exiled by her peers; an open door, leaving an intimate cabin vulnerable to intrusion; a dragon figure in a closet, a supposedly harmless yet frightening intrusion. It’s a very thought-provoking read.
- Leda’s character reminded me of Ines from CATHERINE HOUSE - a young woman who is “typical” (or trying to be) on the outside, more relatable internally, who is utilized by the author to connect with the readers.
- As with much existing dark academia, it’s very white. The author strives to have a more representative cast in this novel but it’s not substantive. For some reason Leda speaks Spanish and uses that to process her feelings, which felt a little off to me.
- By the end I did feel the mystery had been too contrived; Leda manages to have some conversations in the culmination of the story that, if they’d happened earlier, would have straightened some things out, and it’s unclear to me in what ways she developed that allowed her to have these conversations she couldn’t have earlier (other than a very mild “learning to face her fears alone” vibe). Now that I’m writing this, though, perhaps Caritj did want to convey just how difficult it is to communicate about sex and consent, how much courage it takes to break down those norms. Regardless the novel didn’t feel like it was saying anything that new or saying it in a way that was particularly effective. I wanted there to be a more concrete ending, but given the focus on Leda’s character and the short time frame of the novel (just over a month), the changes we do see in her are more realistic. I personally would have preferred to see more character development if that’s the focus of the novel, or more plot/substantive mystery otherwise.

Thank you to Riverhead Books for the review copy!

Content warnings: rape/sexual assault, blacking out, loss of a parent, suicide

[Katyak79 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm the outlier here but I really enjoyed this, largely in part because of the heavy dose of college nostalgia. I don't consider myself a bimbo, and I wasn't in a sorority but had very close friends that were and spent quite a bit of time around this type of thing. And let me tell you, it was FUN, especially for someone who went to a commuter school and focused primarily on academics. This book captures the camaraderie, self discovery and sheer anticipation of that environment well. I remember being this girl at 19 that was so excited to meet boys, meet friends, and go to the next epic party in a dingy frat victorian, and believe me the parties were really epic back then. This book also captures the dark undercurrent of alcohol, sketchy sex and bitchiness that was also present. However, positives aside, i was not entirely sold on a few things. I didn't think the mystery aspect was necessary or very well done, and while sense of place is excellent, the time when this occurred was confusing. The music is early 2000's (incidentally, about the same time that I was this age) and the phones are flip, but back then yoga was not a thing, as well as a few other details. Last, I wasn't a fan of how the author uses blacked out vs. unconscious. Correct me if I am wrong but those two things are not interchangeable.

[Alix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leda and the Swan is a difficult book to review. The story is focused on the protagonist trying to remember what happened on a particular night with a boy she likes. It’s implied that she was most likely sexually assaulted. There’s also another plot line about a missing girl but that storyline was not suspenseful and the resolution was anticlimactic. It didn’t really add anything for me. I think this book would have benefited with tighter character development, especially with some of the side characters, such as Ian. Overall, while I appreciated the commentary regarding sex and consent on college campuses, I just felt that the characters and story were a bit underdeveloped.

[A · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a bit of disappointment, since the premise was so interesting and well set up. I don’t think there was really character development and I founds the prose filled with nonstop rhetorical questions, which got on my nerves. Also it was way too long

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

My literary horoscope recommended this book. It was a quick read but a very strange book. I am not going to read anything else by this author.

[NJB · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending spoiled this book for me.

[Leila · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm only 17 pages in and I already hate everything about this book.
I loved Prep and other campus novels, and I truly think a good book defies demographics, but if you're not a sorority girl twatmuffle with the personality of a pair of Fabletics leggings, and possess even the slightest amount of insight/self awareness, save yourself. I'm sending this back to the library mostly unread.

[Kimberly Loner · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise sounded good (a sorority girl is caught up in a mystery girl’s disappearance) but the book dragged way too long before providing any kind of answer. There was entirely too much description, thought, and observation- to the point that it slowed the action down. I wished anything that didn’t drive the plot forward would have been cut- all the yoga, astronomy, sorority sisters, the monk, goats/deer/farm animals, the stepfamily...the list goes on and on. When paragraphs are devoted to a monk (like his video game playing skills? His burrito preference?) that have no impact on the story, they should have been deleted! I really could have loved a thriller that focused on Ian, Leda, and Charlotte and their past/present. When it takes 240 pages to get any kind of an answer, I’m done.
Leda herself is too hesitant, wishy-washy, and indecisive for me and I was very frustrated that she spends half the book ignoring Ian, when talking to him soon after Halloween would have made a huge difference.

[Candace Noelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 This is a novel that tries to tackle big ideas about college, frat/sorority life, consent, death, mourning, friendship and personal discovery though a “missing girl” story. Unfortunately the ideas are a bit of a jumble (and perhaps hollow) and the landings just don’t stick. Further, a number of the main characters don’t have much “there, there.” And the writing is more a bit clunky. I kept waiting for more.

This was a bit of a disappointment.

[susan pribil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible-boring, cliche, awkward. I hated it.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This exceptional first novel by Anna Caritj is from the heart, literally. It's about a small incident that leads the protagonist on a true journey of self realization, and while that sounds heavy, it's not. It's a college novel, but not one of extremes; rather, it honestly looks at change, independence, and discovery. Even though the book is driven by a mystery, it's more than that. Caritj is a terrific writer and her prose is to be relished. What's more, I read tons of college novels, and this one is subtle and true. Highly recommended!

[Risa · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the heck did I just read? I need to stop buying books from book sales just for the heck of it, because clearly I don't have good luck.

I picked this up because it seemed interesting and the one page I randomly flipped to seemed well written and nicely paced. NOPE. I don't know if Anna Caritj was in a sorority or what, but this seemed like it was a love-hate letter to Greek life. The amount of name dropping of Greek sororities/fraternities in the first 10 pages was absolutely insane and 95% turned me off to the rest of the book.

The other 5% that turned me off was Caritj writing sentences like "The girls each took a piece of candy, shivered their wands at Leda, and ran off, legs flinging" (p. 7). JUST SAY THEY SHOOK THEIR WANDS AND RAN OFF. What is this "shivering" and "flinging" business??? More is not always better when it comes to writing (I say, as I angrily type out a long review). She spends so much time adding frou–frou adjectives to sentences like these, but none in scene transitions that would have been way more helpful.

Other bonus sentences that made me mad:
- "Leda shifted the pumpkin, damp and heavy." (p. 7) what is damp and heavy? Leda or the pumpkin??

- "The pipes in the building were old (and disintegrating from all the Drano the girls poured into them on the daily), and any water Leda ran upstairs plunged like a cataract through the walls." (p. 52) WHAT DO YOU MEAN PLUNGE LIKE A CATARACT

- "'¡Què tragedia!' Leda sang, bouncing on the balls of her feet." (p. 53) RIGHT AFTER SHE FINDS OUT ABOUT THE MISSING GIRL. Also doubled as irritation because of the gratuitous Spanish

- "The sidewalks surrounding the Lawn pumped like arteries early Wednesday morning." (p. 69) what a weird mental image

It just felt like Caritj was trying too hard. Trying too hard to be emotive and lyrical and come off as smart, and also trying to take a critical and thought provoking look at sexual assault...and it all just fell completely flat. And let's not forget her use of the disappearance of a PoC to prop up our white protagonist's growth (to my knowledge Leda is white. Please correct me if I am wrong).

I'll be completely honest, I did not really finish reading the book. After the first two or three chapters I just started flipping through the pages because I wanted to solve the mystery. I would stop every so often and read a page, and then repeated that until the end. Each time I stopped there would always be a new names. Very rarely did I see a repeat character. So I'm not 100% positive when I say this, but I also think there's just too many characters in this book.

Just disappointing all around.

[Tom Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 but I'm going to round up to four stars because why not? I think the average rating here on Goodreads is too low. While three stars indicates a "good, solid book" on my own personal sliding scale, I'll admit that I can be unduly influenced when I see a title with a composite rating in the low 3s here on Goodreads. Yes, this is a 3ish star book, but it is solidly three stars if that makes sense, and at times veers into four star (very good) to five star (excellent) territory. In conclusion, star ratings are stupid, if occasionally useful, and I will likely never stop assigning them. Leda and the Swan is incredibly good for a debut, and I think that some of the criticism of the book comes from the fact that it really isn't a fast-paced, page-turning thriller, even if it is being billed as one in some circles, including the summary on the book itself. The novel is more thoughtful than that, and deserves to be reviewed more thoughtfully than "did it thrill me?" or "was I on the edge of my seat the whole time?" There are some very good contemporary thrillers out there, but so many are a dime a dozen/the same. This novel is more meditative, it is interrogating rape culture and sorority/fraternity culture in colleges, anxiety and grief and confusing feelings on intimacy in an individual. All of these things in Leda manifest themselves in a low-grade obsession over a missing fellow student. There is strong imagery, there is contemplation, and yes a lot of it is slow moving, and the mystery as it is probably could have been easily solved much earlier by Leda or by someone else. But I think the novel unfolds in a realistic way; the confusion, missed clues, missed opportunities, the innocuous explanations that emerge sometimes, all of this feels believable. And maybe it is just what I bring to campus novels, but I also feel that Leda and the Swan is atmospheric, despite some of the criticism I'm reading. No, this isn't The Secret History or The Rules of Attraction or your favorite campus classic, but I see the influence of those books on this one, and I think that's just fine. This novel is serious minded and well executed by its author Anna Caritj. There's a lot to think about and a lot to talk about here and also a lot to admire.

[Nell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leda geht auf College und gehört einer Sorority an. Nach dem Tod ihre Mutter vor drei Jahren, sehnt sie sich nach einer Familie und ist froh über die Gemeinschaft, auch wenn diese oberflächlich ist und veralteten, zum Teil absurden Regeln folgt. Dann ist da noch Ian, der mit ihr flirtet und mit dem es auf einer Halloweenparty ernster wird. Am nächsten Tag hat sie einen Filmriss, dreckige Füße und einen Verletzung an der Lippe. Ihre letzte Erinnerung betrifft ein Mädchen, das seitdem verschwunden ist. Leda fragt sich nicht nur, was mit Charlotte passiert ist, sondern auch mit ihr selbst und ob sie mit dem Verschwinden etwas zu tun hat.
„Flüchtige Freunde“ von Anna Caritj sieht auf den ersten Blick aus wie ein Thriller und hat auch viele Merkmale des Genres: die Spannung, das Mysteriöse und einen Showdown mit Waffe, doch es ist ein Roman mit Augenmerk auf Ledas Entwicklung. Sie taumelt schon vor Halloween durchs Leben, hat unbedeutenden und oft nicht wirklich einvernehmlichen Sex, weil es nun mal dazugehören soll. Sie ist auf der Suche nach einer Familie und glaubt sie bei Delta Psi gefunden zu haben. Doch nach Halloween ist nichts mehr wie es war. Jetzt sucht sie auch noch nach Charlotte und ihrer Erinnerung, wodurch sie sich immer mehr selbst findet und erkennt, in was für einer Gemeinschaft sie sich vermeintlich sicher fühlt.
Charlottes Verschwinden wird Ledas Wendepunkt und es ist spannend ihre Entwicklung zu beobachten. Alles wird mehr oder wenig schlüssig aufgelöst, obwohl ich Ledas Verhalten manchmal nicht nachvollziehen konnte. Das Ende wirkt leider nicht so gut durchdacht, wie der Rest des Romans.
Besonders interessant fand ich, das Setting an einem College und vor allem das Leben in einer Sorority. Anna Caritj Stil ist sehr fesselnd, beobachtend und mit gut gewählten Metaphern gespickt.
Wer einen klassischen Thriller sucht, ist hier vielleicht falsch; wer einen guten Roman lesen möchte, kann gerne zugreifen.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

College student Leda wakes up the morning after Halloween having no memory of what she did the night before. She remembers being at a party with her sorority sisters and her crush, Ian, but things become fuzzy after that. She also remembers having a brief conversation with a girl named Charlotte, who has now gone missing. As Charlotte’s missing status consumes campus, Leda struggles to figure out what happened to her on Halloween, while also becoming obsessed with Charlotte and what might have happened to her.
I read a book with a similar plot a few months ago (college student becomes obsessed with a case involving a classmate) and this one was far superior. (For one thing, it didn’t involve the main protagonist becoming Veronica Mars and solving the case on her own). This read is a bit of a slow burn, but I still found myself captivated by both mysteries. Leda isn’t the most developed or sympathetic character, and I wish the author would have spent more time creating more personality traits or a fully fleshed out backstory. Leda just seemed…there.
The author really captured the essence of college life, specifically the sorority culture and the trauma of sexual assault. The book was well written, and I reread several passages because they were so good. The mystery of Charlotte was a bit drawn out at the end, and it felt lackluster overall after all the hype in the beginning of the book. It feels like the author was trying to say something profound about missing women and consent, but just never got there in the end.

[Tess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh gosh, what to say about LEDA AND THE SWAN? It's so hard for me to say no to a campus-set novel, but I just didn't connect with this one. Extremely esoteric and not a lot to latch on to in the way of character building, the novel has a mystery at its core but ends up not really being about finding the missing girl who disappears on Halloween night. She moves the story forward for Leda, our main character, but the book ends up being more about consent, loss, and slight coming of age (though for me, and why it's a 3 star book at the end of the day, the coming of age was seriously lacking and I didn't feel connected to Leda at all).

I can see how authors who dive into campus settings now need to make it perhaps interesting or different to sell since it can be well-trodden territory, but sometimes I still just want a straight forward college book with rich characters and a driven plot. Caritj certainly can write, and I would definitely be interested in reading other things from her in the future, but this feels a lot like a classic debut novel which probably needed a bit more editing.

[Becky Motew · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay read with a literary title, though I was impatient by the end. Let's pick up the pace!

It's YA, isn't it? Leda is a sorority girl at fictionalized UVA and so is/was Charlotte Mask, who vanishes after.a Halloween party. Cute guy Ian could be a rapist. The whole book is frustrating and one of those stories where a crucial thing is about to be uttered and someone interrupts or something happens and we don’t get to hear it. Then it happens again and then again. Leda is constantly running away from people and then wishing she hadn’t. It’s exhausting.

Lots of questions left unanswered at the end, such as how did she cut her lip? What was all the mud on her feet? What really happened?

At least a third of it could be cut.

jmo