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Jennifer Weiner

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Swim: An eShort Story Kindle Edition

by Jennifer Weiner (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.8 1,720 ratings

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The short story that inspired Jennifer Weiner’s novel The Next Best Thing.

Ruth has left her job writing for a hit television show for reasons she’d rather not discuss and is supplementing her increasingly dwindling savings with freelance writing projects—namely, helping anxious high school students craft a perfect college essay and lonely souls craft captivating online dating profiles. When she’s not working, she’s swimming—lap after lap at the local indoor pool, in a desperate attempt to wash away the sting of professional failure and heartbreak that she can’t seem to shake. It takes an unexpected client to show her that appearances can be deceiving, and that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is simply dive back in.

Print length

58 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Atria Books
Publication date

May 8, 2012
File size

2993 KB
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Word Wise

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Enhanced typesetting

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seventeen books, including Big Summer, Mrs. Everything, the children’s book The Littlest Bigfoot, and an essay collection, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing. A graduate of Princeton University and contributor to the New York Times Opinion section, Jennifer lives with her family in Philadelphia. Visit her online at JenniferWeiner.com.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0078XG13W
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atria Books (May 8, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 8, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2993 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 58 pages

Customer Reviews:
3.8 1,720 ratings

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Jennifer Weiner

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Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nineteen books, including That Summer, Big Summer, Mrs. Everything, In Her Shoes, Good in Bed, and a memoir in essays, Hungry Heart. She has appeared on many national television programs, including the Today show and Good Morning America, and her work has been published in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, among other newspapers and magazines. Jennifer lives with her family in Philadelphia. Visit her online at JenniferWeiner.com.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5

1,720 global ratings

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Candice S

great short story

Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2023

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This short story leaves you wanting more. Looking forward to reading more. Although I think the next story doesn’t pick up where this one leaves off.

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Kindle Customer

"A Provocative Short Story"

Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2016

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This is a very well written story about a woman who writes for television shows, movies, sitcoms, and is also a freelance writing. But she wants a little more of life and chooses instead to help high school students prepare for college through many hours of counselling. She has a lonely life, lives with her grandmother who raised her. As a young child, she lost her parents in an auto accident. She was injured and required many surgical procedures to help restore her face and jaw. The only peace she has at this time is swimming. She swims an enormous number of laps in a pool late at night, hoping to wash away thoughts of failure and heartbreak. This is a very thoughtful and provocative story which is an introduction to the author's upcoming book, "The Next Best Thing."

One person found this helpful

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Carrie Kellenberger

Interesting novella

Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2013

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I've never been a big fan of short stories. Had I known this was a novella when I downloaded it, I probably would've reconsidered. Nevertheless, Swim is a good read about a young woman named Ruth who was involved in a car crash when she was quite young, leaving her orphaned and permanently disfigured. Ruth's grandmother raises her and they end up moving to Los Angeles were Ruth can pursue her dream of becoming a screen writer.

Ruth lands a job writing for a television show and ends up developing feelings for one of her co-writers, who ends up hurting her badly. The book opens with Ruth taking on safe and meaningless writing assignments while she recovers from her heartache. She ends up meeting a man named Gary, who hires her to help him put together an online dating profile. Ruth hides her feelings by swimming for hours every night in her gym pool, but she eventually starts to open her heart to this new man in her life.

The thing I liked best about Swim wasn't the story itself. It takes a talented writer to produce strong character development within a matter of chapters, but Weiner seems to excel at this. I thought she did an excellent job of painting a picture of both Ruth and her grandmother. I just wish the story was longer so I could get to know them better.

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Kristel V.

... Weiner and thought this short story might be a good start. It is a short story preview of ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2014

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I have never read anything written by Jennifer Weiner and thought this short story might be a good start. It is a short story preview of Weiner's novel, The Next Best Thing. It tells the story of Ruthie, who left her job as a television screenwriter after getting her heart broken. Instead, she settled with a job on helping teenagers with their college applications. Most of the time, she hides her scarred face (from an accident) and her broken heart by doing laps on the pool. She judges people on profiles, but that changed when she learned more about her two clients: a teenager named Caitlyn who was living more than the typical rich kind of life, and Gary, an average-looking guy who enlisted her help of creating his online dating profile. What I like about this story is Weiner's humor, and how she blended Ruthie's personality as independent but with insecurities.

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2015

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I loved the way that this was going, getting to know Ruth, Lonelyboy, and Caitlyn, and even when the "eShort" ended, in my opinion, abruptly I was seriously considering buying the next part of the story, "the Next Big Thing", because I wanted to know how things worked out, but when reading the beginning of the book that was added to the end of this one I might not. The characters are not all three, too much time has passed and it is very different from the prequel. I guess in the defense of Weiner, she did mention that this was based loosely off from some of her own experiences and things can change as frantically as that in the space between the prequel and the actual book but I really did want to see how things worked out for this set of people in this set of time.

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Zora

Predictable Storyline

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2013

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I bought this book because I heard good things about the author and wanted to try one of her books for cheap. The storyline was about a middle aged woman who lives with her grandmother and they live in Los Angeles. She's a screenwriter, and have a rough time of achieving her goal of becoming a writer. Nonetheless she is apart of a group who writes an award winning tv series where she has a short fling with a co-writer, and he disappoints her since he's interested in societies stereotypical girlfriend. Low and behold she runs into yet another guy who is a better match for her, and they meet through her business of helping potential college students get into good colleges, he has an odd proposal for her and their relationship starts from there. Obviously they become a couple and live a happy ever after life. I am glad that I didn't spend to much money on this since it had a short expiration date of capturing my attention. If you like this author and have other books of hers which you enjoy definitely read it for your collection. There wasn't much going on writing style wise, it was all very basic and predictable no plot twists but for a book this price I am not surprised.

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Barbara Whittington

This was incredible...

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2013

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This short story will not disappoint. If you are already a Jennifer Weiner fan, you'll enjoy this one. I cannot wait to read the novel by the same title. Swim. I was sad when the story ended and was pleased to learn it is to be continued in a novel. Yay. Can't wait to read it. She's an incredible writer. A great plotter. Her stories and novels never disappoint. I'd recommend to anyone who wants a good solid read. Great characters and plotting. Overall a writer who never disappoints.

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2013

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The description of the book is misleading. I assumed it was free because is was as an "E Short". I should have read the reviews before adding it to my library and wasting my time reading it. Before the "confusion" hit me mid-way through, I was already thinking "okay, I get it. Get to the point" at various times during the first half of the "story". That's what made the change over to a different story all the more confusing. I felt, at certain points of the book(s), she droned on and on. This is the first of her writing I've sampled and won't bother with anymore of it. To each their own, I suppose.

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Top reviews from other countries

cindy mc

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on November 9, 2015

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Loved this short story..

Sandra

Short and sweet!

Reviewed in Canada on January 14, 2017

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Short and sweet! Definitely a short, short story. I was surprised when it was finished, but since I had just finished reading 'The Next Best Thing', I did learn a lot more about the protagonist, Ruth Saunders, from that much, much longer story.

Swim is a well-done story and I liked it.

Notahotmessmom

This is not a free short story - it's just a sample

Reviewed in Canada on January 28, 2013

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Nowhere in the description does this title mention that it is just a sample or preview of the full book. It's not even worth the time to download - might take you twenty minutes to breeze through. On the cover pages it says "an eShort Story", but this is not a short story - it's a tease for the $14.99 Kindle book.

With the abundance of well-written romantic novellas available for free on Kindle every day, there's no reason to waste your time reading samples, previews, prequels, or whatever the author decides to call them.

4 people found this helpful

K. Young

Quite short

Reviewed in Canada on June 10, 2013

This was like a teaser trailer to introduce a character in a book. As an avid swimmer, the title intrigued me, but it really had little to do with anything. It was a bit disappointing, fluffy and lacking substance.