What do you think?
Rate this book
Tides
After a sudden, devastating loss, Mara flees her family and ends up adrift in a wealthy seaside town with a dead cellphone and barely any money. Mired in her grief, Mara detaches from the outside world and spends her days of self-imposed exile scrounging for food and swimming in the night ocean. In her state of emotional extremis, the sea at the town's edge is rendered bleak, luminous, implacable.
As her money runs out and tourist season comes to a close, Mara finds a job at the local wine store. There, she meets Simon, the shop's soft-spoken, lonely owner. Confronted with the possibility of connection with Simon and the slow return of her desires and appetites, the reasons for her flight begin to emerge.
Reminiscent of works by Rachel Cusk, Jenny Offill, and Marguerite Duras, Tides is a spare, visceral debut novel about the nature of selfhood, intimacy, and the private narratives that shape our lives. A shattering and unforgettable debut.
As her money runs out and tourist season comes to a close, Mara finds a job at the local wine store. There, she meets Simon, the shop's soft-spoken, lonely owner. Confronted with the possibility of connection with Simon and the slow return of her desires and appetites, the reasons for her flight begin to emerge.
Reminiscent of works by Rachel Cusk, Jenny Offill, and Marguerite Duras, Tides is a spare, visceral debut novel about the nature of selfhood, intimacy, and the private narratives that shape our lives. A shattering and unforgettable debut.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 16, 2022
77 people are currently reading
4444 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 268 reviews
January 19, 2022
4.5 stars
There’s is an aura of sadness from the first pages, sadness and grief. There’s a feeling of despair, a loss, two actually, as Mara loses herself, too, while trying to cope. Introspective and stunningly intimate, this third person narrative is raw and disturbing at times. We see how lost she is, having removed herself from her former life until she opens up and connects.
You can read more about the plot in the description and other reviews, but I’ll say that the writing is spare, yet beautiful and the descriptions so clear. I could see the town as if I were there. I could feel Mira’s raw emotions. I’m drained after reading this. A short book and I have to say it - I couldn’t put it down. A notable debut, for sure . Definitely will look forward to what Sara Freeman writes next .
I received a copy of this book from Grove Press through Edelweiss.
There’s is an aura of sadness from the first pages, sadness and grief. There’s a feeling of despair, a loss, two actually, as Mara loses herself, too, while trying to cope. Introspective and stunningly intimate, this third person narrative is raw and disturbing at times. We see how lost she is, having removed herself from her former life until she opens up and connects.
You can read more about the plot in the description and other reviews, but I’ll say that the writing is spare, yet beautiful and the descriptions so clear. I could see the town as if I were there. I could feel Mira’s raw emotions. I’m drained after reading this. A short book and I have to say it - I couldn’t put it down. A notable debut, for sure . Definitely will look forward to what Sara Freeman writes next .
I received a copy of this book from Grove Press through Edelweiss.
January 20, 2022
A book of anguish, grief and longing, so viseral that it is hard to look away. When her baby is born, a stillbirth, Mara wants to escape everything and everyone, even herself. She leaves Canada by bus, wanting to find a small, coastal town where she is unknown, where she can disappear. When she meets Simon, many months later, she finds herself feeling that maybe there is still a life to be found, one where she can start over. Be someone else. Simon too, however, is dealing with emotional devastation, and like the changing tides, life is never that simple.
An insular, introspective novel, melancholy in tone and beautifully written. Reminded me a bit in tone and prose of My Coney Island Baby.
ARC from Edelweiss.
An insular, introspective novel, melancholy in tone and beautifully written. Reminded me a bit in tone and prose of My Coney Island Baby.
ARC from Edelweiss.
February 4, 2022
Audiobook/ebook ….
audio-read by Amy Rutherford
…..4 hours and 21 minutes
…..unconventional lingering effects of trauma….
…..grief, loss, introspective, spare, elegant, and raw prose….
….a couple of the descriptions were a turn-off…..
graphic > yucky private hygiene visual was unappealing…..
Symbolically…..
I admired the artist connection between the beautiful book cover, and how intrinsically water is healing….. it’s movement, it’s fluid power.
There ‘is’ a little story between the grieving woman who is disentangling herself with a man named Simon—-but ultimately - it’s not the words that will stay with me — but more the overall unusual- immersive mesmerizing complexities of grief’s [life-of-it’s-own] purity.
Plenty of room for readers interpretation.
….sample excerpt:
“I feel like a trashcan emptied out”.
3.5 rating up for the authors artistic creation.
audio-read by Amy Rutherford
…..4 hours and 21 minutes
…..unconventional lingering effects of trauma….
…..grief, loss, introspective, spare, elegant, and raw prose….
….a couple of the descriptions were a turn-off…..
graphic > yucky private hygiene visual was unappealing…..
Symbolically…..
I admired the artist connection between the beautiful book cover, and how intrinsically water is healing….. it’s movement, it’s fluid power.
There ‘is’ a little story between the grieving woman who is disentangling herself with a man named Simon—-but ultimately - it’s not the words that will stay with me — but more the overall unusual- immersive mesmerizing complexities of grief’s [life-of-it’s-own] purity.
Plenty of room for readers interpretation.
….sample excerpt:
“I feel like a trashcan emptied out”.
3.5 rating up for the authors artistic creation.
January 12, 2022
Canadian writer, Sara Freeman’s debut novel’s a beautifully-realised account of a woman in freefall, grieving after the loss of her child. Mara’s in her late thirties, she leaves home in Canada, crosses into America, and winds up in a small coastal town, dominated by the vacation homes of wealthy families. One of those places that comes to life in the summer months but’s eerily deserted come winter. Mara’s story’s a familiar one in a lot of ways: a woman adrift, she has a brief affair, a series of missed connections with local residents, and reflects on a past that suggests she’s always been in some sense absent or on the verge of fleeing. Freeman writes really well, there’s a controlled lyricism to her prose, mingling with grittier, more down-to-earth elements, some memorable images, and a fluidity to the narrative that drew me in and pulled me through. I’ve seen numerous comparisons being made between Freeman and authors like Rachel Cusk, Jenny Offill, and even Marguerite Duras, but, despite the many things I liked about this, I didn’t think it had the subtle heft of Duras’s vision or the intellectual complexity of Cusk’s. It sometimes seemed like a more stylised, more self-consciously literary, version of the kind of novel I associate with people like Anne Tyler, without her emphasis on detailed, structured storytelling. Freeman’s a writer I’ll definitely look out for in future, but, although I found this first offering promising, there were aspects of the novel I found less than convincing, and as a narrative it didn’t entirely satisfy.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Granta Publications for an arc.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Granta Publications for an arc.
February 28, 2022
She was blameless. Who said that? A doctor. And then another after that. Her sister-in-law even piped up. You did nothing wrong, she confirmed, for the first time since she had known her. Only Mara knew the truth—her guilt a loose tooth at the back of her mouth that only she could touch.
Com “Departamento de Especulações” de Jenny Offil, descobri que gosto do género fragmentário porque é o que parece adequar-se melhor ao meu processo mental: tenho a acção que estou a executar, aquilo que me rodeia, os meus pensamentos e as minhas recordações, tudo em confluência, num malabarismo automático. “Tides”, o livro de estreia da canadiana Sara Freeman, é outro exemplo perfeito deste tipo de literatura, que em frases ou parágrafos curtos consegue transmitir a profundidade do sofrimento da protagonista, a sua personalidade arisca, a estância balnear no Outono onde ela se refugiou e a espécie de expiação por que escolheu passar.
Runs away with her thoughts, a note on her report card once read. Now, thirty years on, she supposes she’s done exactly that. She’s run away, and her thoughts have come with her, trailing behind, always nearby.
Mara é filha de um canadiano francófono e de uma canadiana anglófona, mas quando o pai sai de casa, dá-se o primeiro desgosto.
When he left, he took Mara’s language, all her meaning with him, every last verb, every single tense she’d ever learned. I will not have the language of the oppressor here! her mother used to like to declare in those days, inverting the logic of the local politics.
Não se dá bem com a mãe, mas adora o irmão, Paul, com quem tem uma enorme cumplicidade, apesar do contraste entre eles.
If she was tall and wraithlike, then he was short and strong. If he was a good egg, then she was a bad apple. If he was a bright auditorium, then she was a dimly lit corridor. If he was fully realized, exemplary, then she was pure potential, an energy not yet forged into its singular shape.
Casa-se com Lucien...
No one ever warns you: a wedding is like a dream in which every person you’ve ever known shows up and whispers: Don’t fuck this one up!
...mas sofre a maior perda concebível e, à beira de perder o juízo, deixa tudo para trás e parte para a zona costeira dos EUA, onde vive com o pouco dinheiro que traz e que consegue ganhar, suja, mal alimentada, com roupa velha doada ou encontrada na rua.
A protagonista de “Tides” não é uma personagem agradável. A sua vida é pautada por más decisões e pensamentos ácidos, a decadência a que chega é por vezes revoltante. A mestria de Sara Freeman, porém, reside exactamente aí: nos inúmeros momentos em que eu estava quase a desprezar Mara, a autora torna-a mais humana; sempre que eu estava a dá-la como um caso perdido, ela consegue que se redima um pouco; deixa-me compreender a totalidade da sua dor e pensar até onde iria eu no lugar desta mulher.
All roads lead to Rome. She hates the imperialist construct of this adage, but she knows: if there is a mistake to be made, she will make it.
“Tides” é uma ferida feia e dolorosa que Sara Freeman expõe e cura sem paninhos quentes, permitindo que a crosta se forme e a pele cicatrize.
Sometimes she wonders what might have happened if she’d been born less flawed, if she’d turned, on occasion, right instead of left. Maybe then she’d be more like Paul, not a bay stripped bare by the tides, all the scum and rocks and dented plastic bottles on hideous display.
Com “Departamento de Especulações” de Jenny Offil, descobri que gosto do género fragmentário porque é o que parece adequar-se melhor ao meu processo mental: tenho a acção que estou a executar, aquilo que me rodeia, os meus pensamentos e as minhas recordações, tudo em confluência, num malabarismo automático. “Tides”, o livro de estreia da canadiana Sara Freeman, é outro exemplo perfeito deste tipo de literatura, que em frases ou parágrafos curtos consegue transmitir a profundidade do sofrimento da protagonista, a sua personalidade arisca, a estância balnear no Outono onde ela se refugiou e a espécie de expiação por que escolheu passar.
Runs away with her thoughts, a note on her report card once read. Now, thirty years on, she supposes she’s done exactly that. She’s run away, and her thoughts have come with her, trailing behind, always nearby.
Mara é filha de um canadiano francófono e de uma canadiana anglófona, mas quando o pai sai de casa, dá-se o primeiro desgosto.
When he left, he took Mara’s language, all her meaning with him, every last verb, every single tense she’d ever learned. I will not have the language of the oppressor here! her mother used to like to declare in those days, inverting the logic of the local politics.
Não se dá bem com a mãe, mas adora o irmão, Paul, com quem tem uma enorme cumplicidade, apesar do contraste entre eles.
If she was tall and wraithlike, then he was short and strong. If he was a good egg, then she was a bad apple. If he was a bright auditorium, then she was a dimly lit corridor. If he was fully realized, exemplary, then she was pure potential, an energy not yet forged into its singular shape.
Casa-se com Lucien...
No one ever warns you: a wedding is like a dream in which every person you’ve ever known shows up and whispers: Don’t fuck this one up!
...mas sofre a maior perda concebível e, à beira de perder o juízo, deixa tudo para trás e parte para a zona costeira dos EUA, onde vive com o pouco dinheiro que traz e que consegue ganhar, suja, mal alimentada, com roupa velha doada ou encontrada na rua.
A protagonista de “Tides” não é uma personagem agradável. A sua vida é pautada por más decisões e pensamentos ácidos, a decadência a que chega é por vezes revoltante. A mestria de Sara Freeman, porém, reside exactamente aí: nos inúmeros momentos em que eu estava quase a desprezar Mara, a autora torna-a mais humana; sempre que eu estava a dá-la como um caso perdido, ela consegue que se redima um pouco; deixa-me compreender a totalidade da sua dor e pensar até onde iria eu no lugar desta mulher.
All roads lead to Rome. She hates the imperialist construct of this adage, but she knows: if there is a mistake to be made, she will make it.
“Tides” é uma ferida feia e dolorosa que Sara Freeman expõe e cura sem paninhos quentes, permitindo que a crosta se forme e a pele cicatrize.
Sometimes she wonders what might have happened if she’d been born less flawed, if she’d turned, on occasion, right instead of left. Maybe then she’d be more like Paul, not a bay stripped bare by the tides, all the scum and rocks and dented plastic bottles on hideous display.
March 7, 2022
Quite an unsettling storyline. A too close relationship with her younger brother. We're told Mara's first word was "Mine"; her brother's first word? "Mara". Her brother met his girlfriend within days of hearing that Mara had met a man. Mara announced her engagement just days after her brother announced his. Mara gives birth to a stillborn daughter and the next day her brother's wife gives birth to a healthy baby boy. Mara secretly nurses him. When her brother finds them he promises not to tell.🤨
We never really learn why Mara is so messed up, although her Mother might hold a clue. When her own husband left the family, she blamed Mara saying, "You could have tried harder to get your father to stay."😨 We get the impression Mara simply will not allow herself to be happy; she sabotages every relationship she has. Shortly after their daughter is stillborn, she asks her husband to leave, so he returns to the wife he left when Mara came along. She leaves Montreal and crosses into the U.S., looking for a town by the water. Once there, she continues the same pattern. She's always believed she could get any man to fall in love with her, and she relishes the challenge. Once she gets a job in town, she falls for the (married) shop owner, and the craziness begins again. And, while there, she dreams she's in love with her brother.😒
😞 I really wanted to love this book. It's a Canadian debut and I'm all for CanLit, but... I just didn't love it. I didn't hate it, either. It was very depressing and certainly didn't have anything close to a happy ending. But it was very well-written and I'll read a subsequent novel, if there is one. But in all honesty, I cannot recommend it. It's quite dark and, because she continually made bad decisions, I was always on the edge of my seat—a little scared, in fact😧—as though waiting for the other shoe to drop.
With a fair bit of disappointment, I generously give it 3 stars.
We never really learn why Mara is so messed up, although her Mother might hold a clue. When her own husband left the family, she blamed Mara saying, "You could have tried harder to get your father to stay."😨 We get the impression Mara simply will not allow herself to be happy; she sabotages every relationship she has. Shortly after their daughter is stillborn, she asks her husband to leave, so he returns to the wife he left when Mara came along. She leaves Montreal and crosses into the U.S., looking for a town by the water. Once there, she continues the same pattern. She's always believed she could get any man to fall in love with her, and she relishes the challenge. Once she gets a job in town, she falls for the (married) shop owner, and the craziness begins again. And, while there, she dreams she's in love with her brother.😒
😞 I really wanted to love this book. It's a Canadian debut and I'm all for CanLit, but... I just didn't love it. I didn't hate it, either. It was very depressing and certainly didn't have anything close to a happy ending. But it was very well-written and I'll read a subsequent novel, if there is one. But in all honesty, I cannot recommend it. It's quite dark and, because she continually made bad decisions, I was always on the edge of my seat—a little scared, in fact😧—as though waiting for the other shoe to drop.
With a fair bit of disappointment, I generously give it 3 stars.
May 6, 2022
4.5 stars
June 14, 2022
A deeply moving series of reflections on grief, trauma, want, and hope. Striking and unflinching, with the disjointed rhythm of despair and small joys, of silence and optimism. Beautifully respectful of healing and self awareness.
January 21, 2022
Why would someone walk away from the life she's built and everyone she knows? That's the haunting question which hangs over the delicately-paced story of Sara Freeman's debut novel “Tides”. Mara arrives in a seaside American town just as the busy tourist season is waning. It's achingly appropriate that she chooses to go somewhere in a season out of sync with the pattern of most people's lives. She's fallen out of time's rhythm and now she's in a dangerous free fall. Though this community is affluent she is terrifyingly aware of her limited funds and she doesn't want to use any credit cards because she might be traced. She gets by on scraps of food, sleeps rough, swims in the sea at night and takes a menial job in a local wine shop. A connection she forms with a man who appears similarly adrift is less about starting a new relationship and more about acknowledging their parallel disconsolate realities. Though her existence seems perilously reduced “This is exactly what she wanted, she must remind herself: to slip into a blind spot, to run out on her life.” Written in a spare, emotionally-charged style, this novel gradually unfolds to reveal the aching truth of her past and raises stirring questions about the narratives we use to shape our lives.
Read my full review of Tides by Sara Freeman at LonesomeReader
Read my full review of Tides by Sara Freeman at LonesomeReader
January 24, 2022
Review to come.
March 24, 2022
Thank you to Net Galley for the audio of this novel for an honest review.
I believe this is a fictional debut for this author (she does have several non-fiction educational books on GR but no other fiction).
As a debut I always give 2 stars. I admire so much anyone who manages to get a book completed and published. Sadly with this audio I would only add 3/4 star for 2.75 rounded to 3
I requested this book to review as in my career I saw women with pregnancy loss and know how devastating that can be. I was interested to see how this author would handle such a difficult topic.
The book is about a woman who loses herself both mentally and physically after what sounds like a stillbirth, though the actual details around the loss are only alluded to and never described at length. A lot of the details are fuzzy as this woman is the only Point Of View we get throughout the novel and she is mostly working to forget what happened and muddle in her present state. She decides to leave her husband and home and go off to be alone with little money and no real purpose. From that start, the story covers the next 8 months as she comes to terms with her grief and how she holds herself responsible for what happened.
What made this story so difficult for me was how unlikable this character became throughout. The choices she made, both the leaving and the punishing she did to herself while understandable at first become less so as time when on. It is never fun to watch/read about a person on a self destroying bent. Her grief rationalized this behavior at first but she never moved toward any real self examination and the ending I found rather abrupt and a little sudden though it fit with her character. After awhile I began to feel this woman was wallowing in her sadness and seeing her life as a drama where certain elements or events would save her. I wanted to see some resolution for this character, some moving forward but I only learned more about what a despicable person she is/was, and one without much personal self respect and with few tools to begin to heal. It was hard to see a good future for her.
So while it is a story that I found at times sad, depressing and occasionally annoying, (just listening to this woman's thought processes and the decisions made, made me want to shake her at times), it did have some great instances of lyrical writing that I had to admire. It was a hard book to listen to both for the prolonged single narrator, you see everything through this woman's eyes and spend much of that time inside her internal dialogue, and this is primarily grief influenced. An intense novel that made more sense as it went along and was well crafted. It is a character study that is light on plot. I wish I had been able to engage with it or appreciate it more. A novel I find difficult to recommend due to the intensity of its narrator and how it made me feel while listening to it. Might be better in print.
I believe this is a fictional debut for this author (she does have several non-fiction educational books on GR but no other fiction).
As a debut I always give 2 stars. I admire so much anyone who manages to get a book completed and published. Sadly with this audio I would only add 3/4 star for 2.75 rounded to 3
I requested this book to review as in my career I saw women with pregnancy loss and know how devastating that can be. I was interested to see how this author would handle such a difficult topic.
The book is about a woman who loses herself both mentally and physically after what sounds like a stillbirth, though the actual details around the loss are only alluded to and never described at length. A lot of the details are fuzzy as this woman is the only Point Of View we get throughout the novel and she is mostly working to forget what happened and muddle in her present state. She decides to leave her husband and home and go off to be alone with little money and no real purpose. From that start, the story covers the next 8 months as she comes to terms with her grief and how she holds herself responsible for what happened.
What made this story so difficult for me was how unlikable this character became throughout. The choices she made, both the leaving and the punishing she did to herself while understandable at first become less so as time when on. It is never fun to watch/read about a person on a self destroying bent. Her grief rationalized this behavior at first but she never moved toward any real self examination and the ending I found rather abrupt and a little sudden though it fit with her character. After awhile I began to feel this woman was wallowing in her sadness and seeing her life as a drama where certain elements or events would save her. I wanted to see some resolution for this character, some moving forward but I only learned more about what a despicable person she is/was, and one without much personal self respect and with few tools to begin to heal. It was hard to see a good future for her.
So while it is a story that I found at times sad, depressing and occasionally annoying, (just listening to this woman's thought processes and the decisions made, made me want to shake her at times), it did have some great instances of lyrical writing that I had to admire. It was a hard book to listen to both for the prolonged single narrator, you see everything through this woman's eyes and spend much of that time inside her internal dialogue, and this is primarily grief influenced. An intense novel that made more sense as it went along and was well crafted. It is a character study that is light on plot. I wish I had been able to engage with it or appreciate it more. A novel I find difficult to recommend due to the intensity of its narrator and how it made me feel while listening to it. Might be better in print.
October 23, 2021
I got to the end of Tides with something of a sense of relief and thought “Well, what was the point of that?” Shrewd readers will therefore deduce that I didn’t like it.
The story, told in the present-tense, is of a woman whose name, for some reason, we are not told until well after half way through the book. She has, we learn obliquely, lost a child and has left her husband and her family behind without warning, with very little money and few possessions, and ended up in a coastal tourist town as it comes to the end of the season. Here, she is isolated, poor, cold, bleak and alienated. She has occasional sex to manipulate men into helping her and the regrets it, she eventually gets a job and is also helped by the friendship of one woman in the town.
And that’s pretty much it, with a few events which would be spoilers if revealed and a slightly (but only slightly) redemptive note right toward the end. Frankly, I found it rather turgid and depressing to no real end. I didn’t find it a particularly profound study of grief; the emptiness felt by the protagonist is well evoked, but that’s all it is for a very long time. This is a small example of the prose: “She is sandwiched between the two of them: the old and the young, the drunk and the nearly drunk. She pictures herself this way: cold cut, melted cheese, a tomato slick with seeds.” There is so much in this vein and with this rhythm that I found rather mannered. And picturing herself as “cold cut, melted cheese, a tomato slick with seeds”? Seriously? It smacks of Creative Writing Course to me and didn’t appeal.
I’m sorry to be so critical, but I really didn’t enjoy Tides. It’s worth two stars rather than one for the evocation of the main character’s bleak emotional state and the merit of being short. Others may get more from it than I did, but it really wasn’t for me.
(My thanks to Granta for an ARC via NetGalley.)
The story, told in the present-tense, is of a woman whose name, for some reason, we are not told until well after half way through the book. She has, we learn obliquely, lost a child and has left her husband and her family behind without warning, with very little money and few possessions, and ended up in a coastal tourist town as it comes to the end of the season. Here, she is isolated, poor, cold, bleak and alienated. She has occasional sex to manipulate men into helping her and the regrets it, she eventually gets a job and is also helped by the friendship of one woman in the town.
And that’s pretty much it, with a few events which would be spoilers if revealed and a slightly (but only slightly) redemptive note right toward the end. Frankly, I found it rather turgid and depressing to no real end. I didn’t find it a particularly profound study of grief; the emptiness felt by the protagonist is well evoked, but that’s all it is for a very long time. This is a small example of the prose: “She is sandwiched between the two of them: the old and the young, the drunk and the nearly drunk. She pictures herself this way: cold cut, melted cheese, a tomato slick with seeds.” There is so much in this vein and with this rhythm that I found rather mannered. And picturing herself as “cold cut, melted cheese, a tomato slick with seeds”? Seriously? It smacks of Creative Writing Course to me and didn’t appeal.
I’m sorry to be so critical, but I really didn’t enjoy Tides. It’s worth two stars rather than one for the evocation of the main character’s bleak emotional state and the merit of being short. Others may get more from it than I did, but it really wasn’t for me.
(My thanks to Granta for an ARC via NetGalley.)
December 27, 2021
Interesting and well written debut that reads very fast (also because of the short pages). I’ll be looking out for a new novel by Freeman. I found this very promising, but she’s no Offill or Cusk yet.
Thank you Granta and Netgalley for the ARC.
Thank you Granta and Netgalley for the ARC.
May 14, 2023
3/5 stars
"If you can't let go of anything, let go of everything. She read this once somewhere."
If I had to review this book using only two words, it would be melancholic and pointless, both in terms of content and the feeling I was left with after flipping the final page.
Tides tells the story of a deeply troubled woman and her (very unhealthy) way of coping with a complex trauma she’s suffered. When we meet Mara, she has already traveled a long way by bus, not towards- , but away from something. Her flight lands her at a seaside village at what feels like the edge of the world, penniless and without connections. She finds work and refuge at the local wine store and its owner Simon, a man who’s losses mirror her own.
The book has its moments of brilliance, often on the sentence level, but as a whole didn’t really pull together for me. It’s nails its atmosphere, from the loneliness of a coastal town abandoned outside of the tourist-season, to the heavy blanket of melancholy and troubledness that weighs on these characters. Much of it is raw, ugly and bleak, and that’s clearly the intention.
I’m fine with the melancholic part; in fact, I often appreciate the beauty in that. What didn’t work for me was the pointless-part. Mara feels like her life is pointless, but rather than take action and accountability in her life, we only see her engage in more and more pointless acts throughout the novel. She indulges in the vapidness of empty sex, alcohol and luxury food she cannot afford, and by the end has learned absolutely nothing. She ends the story in the exact same place she started, having undergone no character growth or development. Maybe the intent was “realism”, but from a story-telling perspective, this is a problem. Nothing changed over the course of my read. In other words; it was pointless.
Those few beautiful lines of prose, unfortunately flanked by an equal amount of “not quite” sentences, that just missed the mark when aiming for profound, weren’t enough to redeem the book for me. I’m interested to see what Sara Freeman writes in the future, but this unfortunately wasn’t a book I’ll go out of my way to recommend.
"If you can't let go of anything, let go of everything. She read this once somewhere."
If I had to review this book using only two words, it would be melancholic and pointless, both in terms of content and the feeling I was left with after flipping the final page.
Tides tells the story of a deeply troubled woman and her (very unhealthy) way of coping with a complex trauma she’s suffered. When we meet Mara, she has already traveled a long way by bus, not towards- , but away from something. Her flight lands her at a seaside village at what feels like the edge of the world, penniless and without connections. She finds work and refuge at the local wine store and its owner Simon, a man who’s losses mirror her own.
The book has its moments of brilliance, often on the sentence level, but as a whole didn’t really pull together for me. It’s nails its atmosphere, from the loneliness of a coastal town abandoned outside of the tourist-season, to the heavy blanket of melancholy and troubledness that weighs on these characters. Much of it is raw, ugly and bleak, and that’s clearly the intention.
I’m fine with the melancholic part; in fact, I often appreciate the beauty in that. What didn’t work for me was the pointless-part. Mara feels like her life is pointless, but rather than take action and accountability in her life, we only see her engage in more and more pointless acts throughout the novel. She indulges in the vapidness of empty sex, alcohol and luxury food she cannot afford, and by the end has learned absolutely nothing. She ends the story in the exact same place she started, having undergone no character growth or development. Maybe the intent was “realism”, but from a story-telling perspective, this is a problem. Nothing changed over the course of my read. In other words; it was pointless.
Those few beautiful lines of prose, unfortunately flanked by an equal amount of “not quite” sentences, that just missed the mark when aiming for profound, weren’t enough to redeem the book for me. I’m interested to see what Sara Freeman writes in the future, but this unfortunately wasn’t a book I’ll go out of my way to recommend.
February 7, 2022
Format: audiobook
Author: Sara Freeman ~ Title: Tides ~ Narrator: Amy Rutherford
Content: 4 stars ~ Narration: 5 stars
Complete audiobook review
Novel Tides is a very good debut by Sara Freeman. It tells a story of a woman named Mara who is grieving the loss of her child. Without a plan or even much money, she flees from her hometown to the seaside town of Rome.
Tides is a beautiful novella written in a beautiful language that reads almost like poetry. It consists of short passages that melt into a story. This is not a book for the general reader. But those who like good written, reflective novels that read like someone’s stream-of-consciousness will probably like it.
The narrator was great. With a touch of melancholy in her voice, it suits the novel perfectly.
Thanks to Recorded Books for the ALC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.
Author: Sara Freeman ~ Title: Tides ~ Narrator: Amy Rutherford
Content: 4 stars ~ Narration: 5 stars
Complete audiobook review
Novel Tides is a very good debut by Sara Freeman. It tells a story of a woman named Mara who is grieving the loss of her child. Without a plan or even much money, she flees from her hometown to the seaside town of Rome.
Tides is a beautiful novella written in a beautiful language that reads almost like poetry. It consists of short passages that melt into a story. This is not a book for the general reader. But those who like good written, reflective novels that read like someone’s stream-of-consciousness will probably like it.
The narrator was great. With a touch of melancholy in her voice, it suits the novel perfectly.
Thanks to Recorded Books for the ALC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.
March 17, 2022
This is a very unique novel.
I like the title. Love the cover image.
I first learned of this book from a sponsored ad on my Facebook feed. I made note of the book and borrowed it when it became available as an eBook from my local library.
This is a book I’d love to hold in my hand. I think it would feel like a special treasure. I may just have to buy it in that form.
This book has the feel of what it’s like to float in the ocean. I grew up by the ocean. I know about tides. High tide. Low tide. The anticipation of the tide coming in to swim. Hating low tide because it meant walking through eelgrass to get to deep enough water to swim in.
I also love the layout of this book. All the white space. The short text. The mystery of who she is and why she left her home. At times it feels like she wants to punish herself. The writing is hypnotic. Once again, like drifting in the waves.
You slowly get to learn more about her life. Her current situation mixed with pieces of her past. Again, the reference to the ocean, like flotsam.
I love her descriptions!
He crouches over her; she opens her mouth just wide enough to let him in. This is what he tastes like: dirty dog, pickled organs, ashtray, grout.
Another description:
Her period has come. She stinks: nickel, barnyard, oxidized blood.
Sections are short. Sometimes no more than four lines.
Example:
No one ever warns you: a wedding is like a dream in which every person you’ve ever known shows up and whispers: Don’t fuck this one up!
In the book she has a lighter, as she describes:
When up right, the woman wears a pretty pink dress. When she flips it upside down, the woman bears her ample breasts, a tassel, mid-twirl, on each nipple. During their lunch break, she sits in the sun and flips the lighter up and then down, up and then down again.
This brought back the memory of a little key ring a gas station used to give out when I was a child, I remember my father getting them. Dangling from the key ring was a fully nude woman, when turned upside down she wore a black one-piece swimsuit.
Another example of her writing:
You always fill your drink right up to the top, Lucian used to say. And then you act surprised when it spills everywhere.
I do not like books that do not use dialogue tags. But in this novel the dialogue is in italics. And I find it much easier to know when a person is speaking than when there is no italics.
In this case I understand not using dialogue tags. It would clutter up her prose. It would be too distracting.
She has run away. There have been times when that thought crossed my mind. Maybe it’s a fantasy we all share at some point? That urge, or desire to escape it all. To walk away from everything in your life. I ponder: Where would I go? What would I do?
There are little crescent moon’s dividing sections of text.
Here is another short section:
She pictures it sometimes, calling Paul. It’s me, Mara, she’ll say. You won’t believe how much I am changing. Or better yet: You wouldn’t even know I was me anymore.
And that’s what the fantasy of running away is all about. More than running away from other people, it’s that desire to run away from yourself.
As the story unfolds you learn details of her past and what she’s running from.
She ended up in a small tourist town that closes up for the winter. Much like a town I grew up by.
She writes:
She used to dream of this place, or a town just like it, just like the one where her mother was born: picture-perfect in summer, bleak as death in winter.
She is not a likable character. Even though you can identify with her grief. Her struggles. It’s hard to accept all her choices. She is lost and adrift.
Another one of her great short sections:
She sleeps and wakes, sleeps again. In the dream, she is strapped to the hull of a very tall ship. She will go wherever it takes her, she will take whatever blow comes her way.
Last night as I finished this book, I started another, “The Sentence” by Louise Erdrich. Here is where it got a little strange. Both books have the name Mara as a main character. And maybe I make more of this than I should. Though they are not common names, at least where I live. Possibly, I made note of this because of the other book I am currently reading, “I Can see Clearly Now” a memoir by Dr. Wayne Dyer. Reading his book makes me more aware of coincidences and synchronicity. What are the odds out of all the books in the world that I would be reading two at the same time with the same unusual character’s name? I don’t know. But such are the wonderful little mysteries of life.
In the acknowledgements the author writes: Thank you to Bob Fox for introducing me to the repetition compulsion.
Of course, I had to google repetition compulsion.
And here it is: Repetition compulsion is a psychological phenomenon in which a person repeats an event or its circumstances over and over again. This includes re-enacting the event or putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to happen again.
I have a feeling that this woman will repeat the same situation in the next town or city she ends up in.
If you like a darker, deeper look at flawed people this is a great book. It’s short. Easy to read. Hard to put down.
I thank the author for a nice change of pace from the same old same old of how to write a novel.
I like the title. Love the cover image.
I first learned of this book from a sponsored ad on my Facebook feed. I made note of the book and borrowed it when it became available as an eBook from my local library.
This is a book I’d love to hold in my hand. I think it would feel like a special treasure. I may just have to buy it in that form.
This book has the feel of what it’s like to float in the ocean. I grew up by the ocean. I know about tides. High tide. Low tide. The anticipation of the tide coming in to swim. Hating low tide because it meant walking through eelgrass to get to deep enough water to swim in.
I also love the layout of this book. All the white space. The short text. The mystery of who she is and why she left her home. At times it feels like she wants to punish herself. The writing is hypnotic. Once again, like drifting in the waves.
You slowly get to learn more about her life. Her current situation mixed with pieces of her past. Again, the reference to the ocean, like flotsam.
I love her descriptions!
He crouches over her; she opens her mouth just wide enough to let him in. This is what he tastes like: dirty dog, pickled organs, ashtray, grout.
Another description:
Her period has come. She stinks: nickel, barnyard, oxidized blood.
Sections are short. Sometimes no more than four lines.
Example:
No one ever warns you: a wedding is like a dream in which every person you’ve ever known shows up and whispers: Don’t fuck this one up!
In the book she has a lighter, as she describes:
When up right, the woman wears a pretty pink dress. When she flips it upside down, the woman bears her ample breasts, a tassel, mid-twirl, on each nipple. During their lunch break, she sits in the sun and flips the lighter up and then down, up and then down again.
This brought back the memory of a little key ring a gas station used to give out when I was a child, I remember my father getting them. Dangling from the key ring was a fully nude woman, when turned upside down she wore a black one-piece swimsuit.
Another example of her writing:
You always fill your drink right up to the top, Lucian used to say. And then you act surprised when it spills everywhere.
I do not like books that do not use dialogue tags. But in this novel the dialogue is in italics. And I find it much easier to know when a person is speaking than when there is no italics.
In this case I understand not using dialogue tags. It would clutter up her prose. It would be too distracting.
She has run away. There have been times when that thought crossed my mind. Maybe it’s a fantasy we all share at some point? That urge, or desire to escape it all. To walk away from everything in your life. I ponder: Where would I go? What would I do?
There are little crescent moon’s dividing sections of text.
Here is another short section:
She pictures it sometimes, calling Paul. It’s me, Mara, she’ll say. You won’t believe how much I am changing. Or better yet: You wouldn’t even know I was me anymore.
And that’s what the fantasy of running away is all about. More than running away from other people, it’s that desire to run away from yourself.
As the story unfolds you learn details of her past and what she’s running from.
She ended up in a small tourist town that closes up for the winter. Much like a town I grew up by.
She writes:
She used to dream of this place, or a town just like it, just like the one where her mother was born: picture-perfect in summer, bleak as death in winter.
She is not a likable character. Even though you can identify with her grief. Her struggles. It’s hard to accept all her choices. She is lost and adrift.
Another one of her great short sections:
She sleeps and wakes, sleeps again. In the dream, she is strapped to the hull of a very tall ship. She will go wherever it takes her, she will take whatever blow comes her way.
Last night as I finished this book, I started another, “The Sentence” by Louise Erdrich. Here is where it got a little strange. Both books have the name Mara as a main character. And maybe I make more of this than I should. Though they are not common names, at least where I live. Possibly, I made note of this because of the other book I am currently reading, “I Can see Clearly Now” a memoir by Dr. Wayne Dyer. Reading his book makes me more aware of coincidences and synchronicity. What are the odds out of all the books in the world that I would be reading two at the same time with the same unusual character’s name? I don’t know. But such are the wonderful little mysteries of life.
In the acknowledgements the author writes: Thank you to Bob Fox for introducing me to the repetition compulsion.
Of course, I had to google repetition compulsion.
And here it is: Repetition compulsion is a psychological phenomenon in which a person repeats an event or its circumstances over and over again. This includes re-enacting the event or putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to happen again.
I have a feeling that this woman will repeat the same situation in the next town or city she ends up in.
If you like a darker, deeper look at flawed people this is a great book. It’s short. Easy to read. Hard to put down.
I thank the author for a nice change of pace from the same old same old of how to write a novel.
May 4, 2022
After a sudden, traumatic event, a women leaves her home, and travels to an anonymous coastal down. There, she lives an itinerant life, moving between hostels and attics, and keeping warm in the library. She gets a job in a small deli store, and drinks heavily. Told in short, broken fragments of prose, this novel works to get to the heart of Mara's emotional state, and her sense of dislocation. The prose in this novel is strong: focused, penetrating, and spare. However, the style of the book, using short, unconnected paragraphs, means that the reader's attention is drawn to every word, almost as if you're reading a poetry book, and I don't think Freeman's style is strong enough to stand up to that level of scrutiny. The book ended up losing me: I wasn't gripped by Mara's emotions, and I seemed to slide off the text and into the empty margins.
However, I would look out for Freeman's later work, and I'm curious about what will come next.
However, I would look out for Freeman's later work, and I'm curious about what will come next.
February 20, 2022
2 stars (published Jan 16)
**Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.**
WARNING: The "sudden devastating loss" is the loss of a child during pregnancy. I don't think this should be a spoiler because no one should accidentally read this who may be sensitive to the topic. I haven't had a loss, but recently gave birth, and I wouldn't have read this if I'd known.
Pros
+ small seaside village setting with a last-outpost-at-the-edge-of-the-world feeling
Cons
- Mara: a woman running away from her family and her grief by going to a random town and making poor choices
- Simon: a local shop owner (struggling with his separation from his wife) who hires Mara
- There are SO MANY reasons why I wouldn't have picked this book up if the blurb had been more honest. The "sudden devastating loss" = stillbirth. The "possibility of a connection with Simon" involves both of them cheating, which I hate. The "slow return of her desires and appetites" has to do with NOT processing her grief but instead burying it under expensive food and illicit sex.
- The final reveal, the reason why she leaves satisfied, the reason she has to "go on living" is so cliche and really this woman just needs a mental-health hospital stay combined with therapy, seriously!
- What was the point of this book?
TW: child loss during pregnancy, separation, divorce, cheating, anorexia, homelessness, grief, pregnancy
**Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.**
WARNING: The "sudden devastating loss" is the loss of a child during pregnancy. I don't think this should be a spoiler because no one should accidentally read this who may be sensitive to the topic. I haven't had a loss, but recently gave birth, and I wouldn't have read this if I'd known.
Pros
+ small seaside village setting with a last-outpost-at-the-edge-of-the-world feeling
Cons
- Mara: a woman running away from her family and her grief by going to a random town and making poor choices
- Simon: a local shop owner (struggling with his separation from his wife) who hires Mara
- There are SO MANY reasons why I wouldn't have picked this book up if the blurb had been more honest. The "sudden devastating loss" = stillbirth. The "possibility of a connection with Simon" involves both of them cheating, which I hate. The "slow return of her desires and appetites" has to do with NOT processing her grief but instead burying it under expensive food and illicit sex.
- The final reveal, the reason why she leaves satisfied, the reason she has to "go on living" is so cliche and really this woman just needs a mental-health hospital stay combined with therapy, seriously!
- What was the point of this book?
TW: child loss during pregnancy, separation, divorce, cheating, anorexia, homelessness, grief, pregnancy
January 23, 2022
3,5
This is not an easy novel to like. The main character is a woman, late thirties, leaving her old life behind after a miscarriage. She travels from Canada to a small town on the US coast. She does not take care of herself, lets herself go (with the tides), is quite dirty – not an image we easily accept in society or even in literature. In fact, in the village even those people who pretend to care for her in the end appear to have ulterior motives. The atmosphere is bleak, harsh, distressing. One has to be in the mood for it, and I fear I was not really – I kept thinking that the author wanted to show what grief and deep pain can do, but I didn’t feel it. Admittedly though, towards the end I was rather immersed in the story. I have the feeling Sara Freeman´s next book will be better and will certainly look out for it.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Granta for the ARC.
This is not an easy novel to like. The main character is a woman, late thirties, leaving her old life behind after a miscarriage. She travels from Canada to a small town on the US coast. She does not take care of herself, lets herself go (with the tides), is quite dirty – not an image we easily accept in society or even in literature. In fact, in the village even those people who pretend to care for her in the end appear to have ulterior motives. The atmosphere is bleak, harsh, distressing. One has to be in the mood for it, and I fear I was not really – I kept thinking that the author wanted to show what grief and deep pain can do, but I didn’t feel it. Admittedly though, towards the end I was rather immersed in the story. I have the feeling Sara Freeman´s next book will be better and will certainly look out for it.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Granta for the ARC.
March 22, 2022
Oszczędna, elegancka, introspekcyjna i retrospektywna powieść wyspiarska o kobiecie, która porzuca dotychczasowe życie, narzuca sobie wygnanie z niewiadomego dla nas na początku powieści powodu i przybywa do małego nadmorskiego miasteczka, w którym nikt jej nie zna. Poznaje mężczyznę, równie zbłąkanego emocjonalnie. Sporo ucieczki od samej siebie, żalu, udręki i tęsknoty. Jest morze, są przypływy i nadmorski, opustoszały krajobraz poza sezonem jako piękna metafora życia. Oczywiście, że mi się podobało.
March 3, 2022
(3.5) A piercing, melancholy portrait of a troubled woman. Mara has left behind the trappings of her old life and boarded a bus for another country. No one here knows a thing about her. She’s free to reinvent herself, but the past won’t stop haunting her. Gradually we learn that her daughter was stillborn. She gets a job in a wine store, starts furtively sleeping upstairs in the stock room to save money, and gets drunk after hours with her boss. Freeman describes all of this with laser precision, pulling in just enough of Mara’s history to ground the story and account for her motivations. The narration is fragmentary; I idly asked myself if a first-person perspective would have made the novel more intimate – like in Brood by Jackie Polzin. The storyline also felt oddly familiar (Talking to the Dead, Swimming Lessons, Sunburn, Ladder of Years).
See my full review at Shiny New Books.
See my full review at Shiny New Books.
January 8, 2023
"Quand il ouvre et qu'il se trouve devant elle, elle comprend : rien n'est jamais fini ; on ne peut jamais désapprendre à connaître ; la guérison, ça n'existe pas, l'oubli, c'est un luxe qui n'existe pas davantage"
❤️❤️❤️
❤️❤️❤️
May 3, 2023
Fragmented. Introspective. Depressive. Slow. Tedious.
March 9, 2022
3.5 - the story was interesting but I am not a fan of the writing style. I did like that it was character driven, but not a whole lot else going on tbh. I’d recommend it if you’re bored otherwise, read something else
October 26, 2021
Thanks to Net Galley for the advance copy of this book. This is a short, debut novel of loss, longing and self-imposed exile. I liked the format of the book; the clear, stripped back, concise prose and the way the author presented slices of the protagonist's inner thoughts and past memories that led to her present circumstances. I found I was intrigued by most of the characters. Overall the book was wonderful and left a lasting impression. I would truly recommend.
April 30, 2022
A sad, dark debut novel about a woman who walks out of her life and ends up in an out-of-season seaside town.
February 5, 2022
A fragmentary novel mostly, spare literary vignettes, with a suffering woman at its center - Mara, whose name is revealed late, has, after a stillborn birth, walked out of her life, left husband, mother, brother, sister-in-law, and washes up in a wealthy seaside town, bustling in the summer when she arrives, desolate as winter comes; she is living at a remove, from her previous life, from herself to a degree, and yet the story is not as simple, as expected as a story like this might be - the heartsick woman living near the sea and contemplating everything. Indeed, facts emerge about her past and that life that are disturbing, and though they are not explored, they alter in unsettling ways the picture the reader might have formed of Mara.
Read
January 8, 2024I loved how there were no chapters. Memories and observations, rushing in and rushing out. Echoes of a life lived and one being lived now. Would recommend to anyone in a reading slump, along with Ru, by Kim Thuy.
June 30, 2022
I’m a reading traditionalist. What that means (at least to me) is I like my books to follow a traditional style and pattern. I don’t mind a touch of magic realism or a dash of Virginia Woolf but that’s about it.
Sara Freeman’s ´Tides’ was recommended and I thought why not? Well, what a wonderful experience I enjoyed. Freeman has a deft touch with words and phrasing. The short, often very short sections of her story work effectively. I did not use the word chapters. There are no traditional chapters, only white spacing between ideas, settings, character shifts, and reminiscences.
The protagonist is a woman searching for a future but pursued by her past. She is flawed, often unapologetic, and definitely in need of some counselling. But she is compelling. The plot is simple and yet poignant. The end of the novel takes us to where it began, on a bus.
Why ruin a good read with my comments? I suggest you read this book.
Sara Freeman’s ´Tides’ was recommended and I thought why not? Well, what a wonderful experience I enjoyed. Freeman has a deft touch with words and phrasing. The short, often very short sections of her story work effectively. I did not use the word chapters. There are no traditional chapters, only white spacing between ideas, settings, character shifts, and reminiscences.
The protagonist is a woman searching for a future but pursued by her past. She is flawed, often unapologetic, and definitely in need of some counselling. But she is compelling. The plot is simple and yet poignant. The end of the novel takes us to where it began, on a bus.
Why ruin a good read with my comments? I suggest you read this book.
September 22, 2025
DNF p.61
I really didn’t like the writing style. I was annoyed almost the whole time. I had higher hopes for this one. I liked the idea of the story.
I really didn’t like the writing style. I was annoyed almost the whole time. I had higher hopes for this one. I liked the idea of the story.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 268 reviews