We Don’t Swim Here by Vincent Tirado (review)

When Bronwyn’s terminally ill grandmother moves into hospice care, her parents press pause on their lives as Illinois, pulling Bronwyn from her beloved swim team and heading to rural Arkansas where she’ll join cousin Anais and raise Hillwoods High School’s Black student population to two. Feeling like a fish out of water, Bronwyn has little expectation of making friends in this town, and locals are visibly astonished that the new girl is a swimmer because, as they say, “we don’t swim here.” When Bronwyn gets too curious about this town’s obsession with avoiding water, strange behaviors turn sinister as the mystery of why they do not swim unfolds. Anais, for her part, tries to keep her cousin in the dark and therefore safe because the less she knows about this town’s superstitions and rituals, the better. Tirado spins a creepy yarn, building layers of tension with Anais and Bronwyn’s dual perspectives; readers will know that Bronwyn’s anxious suspicions are entirely justified as Anais reveals the town’s secrets, but eventually both cousins find themselves in way over their heads, confronting a shameful past that continues to ripple through Hillwoods. Clues about the villain are laid expertly through the book, but the depth of cruelty and selfishness is nonetheless a surprise. This compelling supernatural mystery ultimately ponders the power dynamics that allow oppressors to claim—with a knowing wink—that their whitewashing of history is for the sake of future generations.