The characters were uniquely eccentric but the attractions and repulsions between them didn't ring true. It did hold my interest more as the the story went on. I wanted to find out if and where Rennies die. But, was still anxious for it to be over. Flashes of brilliant phrasing made me believe it was Maria Flook.

The story portrayed in Open Water is an extremely intense roller coaster. Open Water starts out slowly, building the characters in rich detail before crashing you into the high powered emotions surrounding the death of Rennie and Willis's ability to deal with it and what it means to the only stability he has ever been able to accept. Although the characters appear to be people I have little, if anything, in common with, I found myself completely absorbed in their lives for the duration of the novel. I read this book a while ago, but it remains one of the best, most haunting stories I have had the pleasure to read. I would recommend it highly to anyone.

O.K. -- This is not a "feel good" read, but it does tell the story of the 1960s collision between the underworld/counter-culture and post-World War II bourgeoisie in the microcosm of this family in a compelling way, which is more than I can say of "The Liar's Club," another dysfunctional family drama.

This book is interesting and important because I think a lot of people don't know, or have forgotten how strange things were back in the sixties. The author seldom analyzes or reflects on the past events from an adult perspective -- the memoir tends to be a reconstructed laundry list of things that happen. Yet I wonder how honest it is, in a way -- the author presents herself as a fearless, daring, self-preserving survivor -- I wonder if this is more how the adult would like to paint herself, rather than how she really was.

Am I the only one who thought that the mother, Veronica, was not only the most interesting character in the memoir, but perhaps the sanest? An early proponent of "tough love", survivor of abandonment in a previous, early marriage, Veronica has no intention of letting her out of control teenage girls upend the life she has struggled to bring to order. To me the girls' behavior has less to do with withheld love, than with a genetic similarity to their mother. Back in the fifties and sixties, the ideal mother was supposed to be self-sacrificing -- the girls' seem to resent her for putting her own needs first. Now women like Veronica are the norm. Quite honestly, she merely had a healthy ego -- I don't see much evidence of emotional abuse,and the parents seem quite generous, financially. After she committs the narrator to the state asylum -- which actually doesn't sound that bad (the girls aren't even drugged, as they would be today, no tales of abuse related) Veronica resourcefully hooks Maria up with book deal calling for poems from jaded teens, launching her literary career. She seems to be trying to do her best,in her own way.

The girls, on the other hand, come off as thwarted Daddy's girls, who would have liked to take their mother's place. All in all, I felt more for the parents than for anyone. What would anyone do with such wild, spoiled girls, in such a volatile social environment?

The author seems to have landed on her feet -- first of all, she had the presence of mind to make an early marriage to an Ivy League heir, then persevere with her creative dreams. The "lost" sister Karen -- I'm sorry, but she seems to have chosen her fate. She seems to glory in her slumming, and by the book's end, seems to resent her younger sister's accomplishments. So many people come into the world with worse families and backgrounds -- to me, Karen is more a casualty of the sixties and her own bad choices than anything else.

Another thing that bothered me -- the author seems to resent that the mother is using the rest of her money on a posh retirement home. Well, if you'd wanted Daddy to leave something to you, you should have had a word with him before. The girls seem to resent their mothers' very existence.

This is an odd book. The author seems to want to elevate Karen and hold the mother up for critique, yet manages to do the opposite, at least to this reader.

I had the same reaction to this book that I had to Janet Fitch's fictional but no less powerful book, WHITE OLEANDER. Both writings are concerned with the hard, dark underbelly of the suburban American Dream. But I definetely had a different reaction to Flook's story than other reviewers here. I don't find her self-pitying at all, but rather in that place where the only way to call the devil by name (which, by the way, is "dysfunctional family") is to just tell the story. And, no, to respond to one reviewer's rhetorical question, I don't think Flook's mother comes off as the sanest person in this sad narrative. Nobody seems to be anything but self-centered, even Flook's sweet but ineffectual father, who seemingly gets his gratification by pretending that his family isn't falling apart around him. Flook uses the metaphor of two ocean liners ramming into each other to describe the calamities within her family. She simply tells it like it was, without reproach, justification or regret. It wasn't every child's family or upbringing--it was hers, and she survived it, didn't she?

The proud and vain mother, the bad sister, the good sister - the recognized female pathologies abound in this excruciating, gorgeously written family tale. Bad sister runs away, good sister stays home, but both begin to make the same sexual missteps in their often creepily parallel worlds. Ms. Flook's style is creative and precise, specializing in queasily accurate descriptions of bodily sensations. The author's frequent disdain for her younger self and sibling is both amusing and a little cruel. This book is fun to read, but you might not want to admit it!

Why all the hype? This book has not story at all. The author tells us about her own personal fantasies regarding a horrible crime. She knows nothing about the victim, did almost no research to speak of. We learn abosolutely zip about the crime, the victims, or possible murderers, in fact, much of the information she shares is wrong. The crime is not solved and she doesn't add anything new or interesting. Better information about this crime and Christa Worthington is available on the web. I found the book poorly written and boring. It is as if Ms. Flook took this opportunity to make a quick dollar without any regard to the victim's child or family.

As MY SISTER LIFE was one of the best books I ever read, and the Christa Worthington case is fascinating, I eagerly anticipated this book and saved it for my Fourth of July weekend. What a letdown. This book is so disorganized and poorly edited I can hardly believe Maria Flook wrote it. Unbelievably repetitive. "Susan Jackett was the undisputed most beatiful girl to ever graduate from Provincetown High School." "Only Worthingtons can talk about the Worthingtons." Interesting the first time. Not the second and third time and I think even fourth time. Christa's hair must be called "sorrel" at least 90 times. Typos abound (a "Porch" car?) strange italicizing... bizarre wording. "That's quite a piebald ghykhana" "the pillowy pier of her Posturepedic" I know she is a poet, but.... I didn't even finish the book. If you're interested in the case, there are tons of good articles about it. If you're a Maria Flook fan, revisit MY SISTER LIFE. I'm sure not as big a fan of hers as I was before this book.

A sad, sad, story but beautifully written. A great edition to the true-crime genre, even without the "who" part of the Who Done It.