I just finished reading Michael Tougias's latest nautical thriller, "A Storm Too Soon." I really liked a couple of his earlier books. I really didn't end up liking this one - but I expect more than a few folks will disagree with me about this. It's a dramatic true story of sailboats going down in a hurricane-like storm, crew barely surviving in a life raft, and then being heroically rescued by the Coast Guard. So what's not to like? I was disappointed, first, as a sailor, to learn almost nothing at all new about the experience of such a storm or how to cope with it using gear, techniques, or anything else. Tougias admits he's writing for a general public and doesn't want to go much into sailing stuff, so I guess it's fair not to expect to actually learn anything here. But I'm disappointed also by the storytelling itself: after striking terror in our hearts early in the book, he is constantly struggling to make it ever more terrifying, ever more suspenseful - a huge battle between good and evil at times, the terrible sea wanting to squash us poor humans, and if injuries, drowning, and hypothermia can't kill us, then maybe sharks will! Maybe I've simply read too many hundreds of true narratives by sailors to be able to suspend my disbelief when the story is told by a nonsailor, professional writer. Here's my review - and feel free to disagree!
