It says a lot about a book that even though there is no clear reason for the book - no central character, no particular incident to focus on, just a quiet commentary on people - I still couldn’t put it down, and read it over a day.
The book focuses on couples and families staying at an isolated holiday park in Scotland where the rain is never ending, and flits from one character to another’s’ thoughts and commentary on those around them.
The reason this had me so hooked is just how spot on the inner dialogue and commentary on others is - I was nodding along and feeling the frustrations!
I did find myself a little frustrated by the very end, where I suddenly found myself wanting more, but otherwise a great easy read!

It’s the longest day of the year at a holiday park on a remote highland loch, which should be idyllic, but the rain is relentless and the atmosphere tense. The log cabins are currently home to a myriad of characters including a retired doctor and his ailing wife, a depressed mother of two, a running addict, a newly engaged couple, a young family with a baby, teenage siblings longing to escape each other and their middle aged parents, and a Ukrainian mother and a daughter. We hear from the various characters except the Ukrainian family who are cast as outsiders from the start. As we watch events play out through each of the characters eyes alongside their inner dialogue, what starts off as a monotonous rainy day builds towards a tragic conclusion.

A novel about a bleak day on a campsite wouldn’t usually be something I’d pick up but I’m so glad I did. Written in the form of a stream of consciousness, you can almost picture yourself there, watching alongside each character as the rain falls and the day grows darker. The atmosphere is almost suffocating, and little interludes that weave the surrounding nature in to the mix only make it all the more ominous, this is descriptive writing at its best. Each of the characters comes to life, and the mean spiritedness of some is juxtaposed with the young fiancé picturing bacon rolls during sex, and the tired mother who wastes her only free hour thinking about how she should spend it. It’s very realistic which makes the casual racism all the more jarring but Moss captures the essence of Brexit era Britain perfectly.

I have never read Sarah Moss before but I’ll be adding her to my list of go to authors now that I’ve finished this little gem. If you’re looking for a short but thought-provoking and immersive read, I would definitely recommend this.

Over the course of a single day we spend time with the different residents of a Scottish holiday park as they try to make the most of, or simply make it through, an incredibly wet summer’s day. I mistakenly believed I would read this short book quickly but it turned out to be rather dense and a much slower read for me. Each chapter is from a different characters perspective and the writing is an almost endless flow of internal thoughts. Unfortunately for me I started reading Summerwater at a time that my own thoughts were loud and racing and adding other people’s thoughts into the mix meant I couldn’t always focus. As soon as I was in a better frame of mind and able to settle into the story I became utterly absorbed, the writing is beautiful and the more I read the more I wanted to read. It is very atmospheric and Sarah Moss perfectly describes the oppressiveness of a grey day in Scotland.

As you read Summerwater be warned that you may not always agree with the thoughts and opinions of every character. Being stuck in a small community on a miserable day, boredom causes the characters to turn their attention toward the activities and lives of their fellow holiday-makers and, well, everyone seems to have an opinion about everyone else. I find this makes for an interesting and realistic read but I know other people might find it ruins the reading-experience for them.

I have to say not a lot happens in this story until the very end. If you love books that are more character-focused than plot-driven then I would recommend this book. After a slow start I found I loved this short book. Summerwater will be published tomorrow, 20th August, and I have already pre-ordered my copy. I can’t wait to read it again and see how the story changes now that I know the ending.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the free e-book of Summerwater in exchange for a review.

I just didn't get on with this. Moss is a gifted writer and I've enjoyed other novels by her but this fell so very flat for me. I found the stream of consciousness very boring - even the section about the couple trying to have simulatenous orgasms. I'm not sure if I just wasn't in the mood for this or what, but I just found it rather pointless.

Her observations on character are truly lovely but I didn't feel anything for these people. The strength of the descriptions in fact, made me feel rather like a scientist observing results clinically.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review. I can already see that most people are enjoying this a lot more than I did. I still look forward to the author's next work.

Brilliant and evocative book. Cinematic in it's drawing of the impressive and oppressive scenery and intimate in it's depiction of those living there. It's a beautiful and fascinating exploration of people living in their own internal monologues and subconsciously perceiving the otherness of the people around them. Highly recommended.

We’ve all been on that summer holiday, tucked in a log cabin listening to the rain falling endlessly, careless of our holiday plans, watching other holiday makers and wondering what they are doing... I was attracted by the reviews of Summerwater highlighting its observation, humour and exceptional writing. Summerwater is something of a modern day stream of consciousness as the narrative switches between the mind of each of the holiday makers and we sit deep in their thoughts. We are immersed in their boredom, their frustration, their aspiration, their sexual desires, their racism... The writing is beautiful, evoking the rain drenched scenery of a Scottish loch. The atmosphere is tense, frustrated and claustrophobic. I loved the way Moss understands the individual frustrations- ‘Claire makes two cups of tea, in the biggest mugs she can find which are still annoyingly small and also tartan...’, or in the case of the teenager - ‘I can’t exactly post, can I, more rain on more trees, rain again, trees again, more rain, more trees, hashtag summer holiday, hashtag family fun..’ As the day closes the frustration builds. I really enjoyed this book, it is so insightful, so beautifully observed and so utterly evocative. With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital copy of this book.

A really good short read. Beautifully written, I felt I was there watching everything happen.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

I love Sarah Moss’ writing so I was delighted to get my hands on a copy of Summerwater and I can honestly say that I adored it!

Summerwater is set during the longest day of the year at a very rainy summer in a holiday cabin park in Scotland. Each chapter is told from the perspective of the people staying in one of the cabins so we get there own experiences and their views on everyone else. Then the story moves along and eventually we meet almost all the people in the cabins and see how their holidays are going. There is a real sense of building tension through this novel as it works towards it’s shocking conclusion.

This book is brilliant. I loved meeting a person in each of the cabins, it felt like I was right there with them and watching their neighbours on this wet, miserable holiday. We follow a young mum who just wants a few minutes to relax but when her husband takes the children out for an hour she doesn’t know what to do with the time. We meet a young couple who are meant to be having a romantic getaway but the boy is obsessed with working on their simultaneous orgasms and the girl who loves him dearly but is thinking about how she’d just quite like to fry some bacon. There is the family with a teenage daughter who wants to get out and meet up with a man she’s getting to know who’s camping nearby. Also we meet an older couple, the husband likes to walk on holidays but the wife is struggling. We see things through each of their eyes in two different chapters and I found their story really moving. Alongside them is a family we don’t get to meet, they are Ukranian and everyone who watches them seems to be suspicious of them. They play loud music every night and people on the holiday park are judging their every move. The tension slowly builds in the background of everyone else’s story as they each have an existing judgement about this family that they allow to be compounded by the loud music.

I loved the way the author shows us the public side of the holidaymakers but then we get to see their inside selves, how they behave with their family and the glimpses into their secret selves; the things you’d never say but you think.

There are moments in this book where I was holding my breath as various holiday makers have near misses – accidents that could have had a different outcome, childish pranks that felt sinister and dark. The ending when it comes though is still stark and shocking. The reactions of the people around was fascinating and it leaves you thinking about how you would do in that situation.

This is a claustrophobic novella; we all know what it is to be on holiday when the weather is horrendous and there’s nothing to do. I love the way it broadly explores the perspectives of all age groups, it evokes memories we likely all have of this holiday experience.

This is an incredible novella; I finished it a few weeks ago now and I still keep thinking about it. I think it might be one of my favourite books of the year so far. I loved it and I highly recommend it!

I thought the author’s book Ghost Wall was fantastic so I had high expectations for Summerwater. Thankfully, this is everything I was hoping for. This is a very short book, barely 200 pages yet I feel like I’ve read something much longer, 400 or 500 pages at least. The book is broken up into narratives of different lengths, each one focusing on one of the twelve characters, exploring their issues gradually moving all the threads together as the mother and daughter who don’t quite fit in become a force of gravity. The book takes a dark turn towards the end which although hinted at still shocked me. This is a terrific read. One to take your time over despite its brief length.

Summerwater is a beautiful book, perfect for August when we are trying to holiday despite the pandemic.
Section by section, Sarah Moss tells the story of the different people who are all staying in a holiday village somewhere in Scottish woodland.
Each section gives an insight into the person's story, btu it also tells us about the site as a whole, and the world around. Packed with subtle detail, it draws you in, circling back as you view life in the same place from different perspectives, as everyone portayed grows more irritated by the noisy partying family, the outsiders.
A compelling read right to the end which smacked me in the face with the unexpected climax.

This was an interesting and atmospheric short novel, with the tension building gradually over the course of a single rain-sodden day.

We are given windows on the lives of people staying in a group of wooden holiday cabins in Scotland - what they are thinking, whether about their own situation or those staying near them - and, slowly but surely, a picture begins to emerge.

A teenage girl bored out of her mind and her brother, an older man whose wife is in the early stages of dementia, a fitness-obsessed woman with her husband and two children, a woman possibly with post-natal depression and her family, a young engaged couple, and an Eastern European family who annoy everyone else with their loud music.

Everyone is linked, mainly by the appalling weather as they juggle family responsibilities and frustrations, but something is lurking just below the surface and leads to a startling denouement.

I liked the way the various narratives were connected by scenes of nature in the woods near the chalets, and the way different emotions were laid bare. The sense of tension is palpable.

This is a well-written story and I would be happy to read more from this author.

I was sent an advance review copy of this book by Pan Macmillan, in return for an honest appraisal.

Sarah Moss has a huge following and deserves all of her praise as an outstanding writer. This novel is full of darkness and intrigue, suspense and calamity, leavened with Sarah's characteristic wit and observation.

Reading this on one of the hottest days of 2020, it was a relief and respite to delve into torrential rain and a wild loch in the Trossachs.
These short vignettes of the people staying in the log cabin holiday park around the loch were varied and immersive, building up a picture of how different each group were. Each cabin held a group of people frustrated and bored because of the awful Scottish weather, all eyeing up each other through the curtains but none prepared to make the step to engage in conversation or invite them over to liven up the stay. There is an Eastern European family who are treated with suspicion, not least by the little girl of one of the family, Lola, who is spiteful to their daughter. She has obviously learned these attitudes through her father, who expresses prejudices without having even met them.
The two main threads that are beautifully interwoven in this book are the natural world, and the extremes of climate we are beginning to experience that will affect all habitats, and the xenophobic attitudes prevalent in the UK at the moment. Once again, it is highlighted that we need to come together, talk and share cultural experiences in order to find common ground.
The ending was unexpected and jaw-dropping when realisation came to me about what had actually occurred. Nothing is clearly said and it is very clever that the story tests the reader's own assumptions and prejudices as to what has happened.
If you enjoyed Lanny, Reservoir 13 or Stillicide, then you will love this.

This is a brilliant book, but possibly not to be read if you’re going on holiday to a remote cabin in Scotland! Unusually, I empathised with not one, but just about all of the characters, from different stages in my life. The book is a series of stories, each with a different character, from the holiday cabins at a remote location. The author has amazing insight into each person, from the youngest child, through the awkward teenagers, harassed mum to elderly woman. The stories are interspersed with short passages about nature - equally engaging.

Summerwater by Sarah Moss

This is a story of a single rainy summer day on a Scottish holiday park told from the views of 12 different people staying at the park.

This book takes us through the day following different characters of a range of ages and genders. I thought the characters were very well drawn for the brief amount of time spent with each one. It is testament to Sarah Moss’ skill that she creates 12 very different characters that all felt very fleshed out.

There wasn’t a lot of plot as this occurs over just one day however it didn’t need it. This a character study and looks at otherness, ageing, desire and parenting among other things.

I raced through this but also wanted to slow down and savour the beautifully written words. I would read anything Sarah Moss writes.

Midsummer in the Trossachs, 24 hours as experienced by the residents of a holiday park by a loch. On the longest day of the year, the rain keeps falling and everyone finds their mood darkening.

Honest emotions, hopes and memories are explored by the residents, but as night falls these individuals must work together.

The writing echoes the gloom of Scotland on a rainy day trapped inside a damp cabin, wishing for sunshine. Sarah cranks up the suspense but leaves it until the final pages for the story to explode.

Summerwater is the first novel by Sarah Moss that I have read; it won’t be the last. Set in a Scottish campsite populated by cabins which have been handed down through family generations, Moss sites her novel over a period of twenty-four hours in mid-summer. Subdivided into alternating longer and very much shorter sections, the book recounts how that one day, rain sodden as only a British summer day can be, is spent by the people staying on the site and, in the shorter sections, the wildlife that inhabits the surrounding woodland. We follow the attempts by members of each generation to fill the wet, isolated hours when even to set foot over the threshold is to be soaked to the skin. There is the elderly couple having to face the fact that she is slowly descending into some form of dementia; the young couple with two small children trying to find ways to amuse them cooped up in what seems to be a little more than a wooden box; the lovers planning married life on an isolated island for which this must seem like some sort of trial preparation and the teenagers, desperate without their social networking, fighting for independence with every breath.

What has brought these people to what, on this particular day, might well be called a God forsaken place? Moss seems to suggest that it is ingrained habit. These families have spent their holidays sequestered away in these selfsame wooden cabins summer after summer. It is what they do; it has become who they are. And this notion of ourselves as creatures driven by ways of being that have been handed down and reinforced year in and year out seems to me to be at the heart of what Sarah Moss is concerned with.

Some of these habits are relatively new, inasmuch as they have only been part of family life over one, two or three generations. Some are still in the process of being laid down - in one instance quite literally. ‘Zanzibar’ introduces us to Josh and Milly, the young couple who are intending to marry and moved to the island of Barra.

They are trying to have simultaneous orgasms.

If we can learn how to do it, Josh says, we will be like a hundred times more likely not to get divorced. I read about it.
So they are practising; they are trying to build a habit.

Much of Summerwater is heart wrenching, but not ‘Zanzibar‘, which we experience through Millie’s eyes as she tries hard not to judge [Josh’s] facial expressions nor to think about bacon sandwiches to pass the time.  I found myself repeatedly laughing out loud. It’s a sign of Moss’s excellent pacing that she knows just went to offer the reader some light relief and also a sign of the control she has over her material that when we meet the couple again, this time through Josh’s eyes, we realise that what he is actually trying to do is save the relationship, recognising that he has the habit of living in a small island community but Millie does not.

Habits are built over a lifetime and while they can be very useful in as much as they save us time where every day occurrences are concerned, they can also bind us and leave us tied to repetitive ways of living that have ceased to serve us well. And, some habits, some ways of thinking, some ways of reacting, are built over far longer stretches than one single being’s existence. This is perhaps revealed most strongly in the shorter sections which deal with the natural world that also inhabits this campsite and its surrounds. For me, the point is made most tellingly in always wolves, a bare dozen lines in which a doe, protecting her fawn, steps nervously out of the trees.

In her mind there are always wolves, day and night, a pack of them slinking on the edge of scent and sound. They creep nearer when she sleeps, when she and the fawn bow  their heads to drink, when the trees cluster to make hiding places.
Here is a creature who can never have encountered a wolf, but the herd memory, the fear instilled in generation after generation of her kind, still controls her reactions and informs her way of life. And the same is true of the human inhabitants of the campsite. They bring with them their ingrained fear, passed down from father to son, of those whose habits and way of life are different from theirs, a fear which manifests itself in the shape of distrust, dislike, anger and violence.  And, if Summerwater has a fault, for me it is in the ending, which exploits this fear and gives it concrete shape. It seems too sudden, too definite, for a book which has thus far dealt in less direct means of communication. But this is to quibble. The quality of the writing and of the act of creation, where both atmosphere and characters are concerned, seems to me to be outstanding. This is certainly one of the best novels I have read so far this year.

With thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the review copy.

Summerwater is a beautifully written observation of a single drizzly day.

It’s told through the multi-stranded, unremarkable routines of its characters, and the relationships (or lack of) that exist in this little ‘fish bowl’ community in the highlands become its one and only focus.

Everyone resolutely respects the private spaces of their handful of neighbours, preferring to assume and judge from their own bubble rather than physically interact.

The melancholy stream of life trickles throughout the narration. Some themes will feel familiar to most, yet many of the claustrophobic trivialities featured will lead to catastrophic implications that no one could envision.

There’s no denying that every passage was sublime, the ending affecting, and those subtle, incidental chapters featuring the surrounding flora and fauna were well placed. These seemingly unconnected perspectives provide both contrast and symmetry with the human occupation near isolated burrows and undergrowth, while the ever-present danger lies in wait.

I’m pretty sure you can tell I adored the writing. However, I found the pace slow going in places and certain chapters overstayed their welcome a little more than others. Would 100% read this author again though.

Sarah Moss is fantastic at creating really believable characters and she's done it again in this slice of life novel set in a Scottish cabin park. The drama comes from the different perspectives of all the inhabitants of these cabins and the judgements they make of each other. The tension slowly builds to a really powerful ending.

A story happened on one single day at a loch in Scotland. Twelve families respectively couples are spending their holidays up there. It's a rainy and boring day. The story is told from all the different perspectives on this day.
Everyone perceived the others somehow. Over all these descriptions a tension built up and leads into a catastrophe.
Again Sarah Moss has written a very atmospheric novel which starts very slowly and ends dramatically.