This was a bit of an impulse buy/read, I really liked The Girl on the Train also by this author & thus assumed I’d like this one as well. While I didn’t dislike the book I also didn’t like it all that much, I’m in the middle, it’s just okay. Let’s review.
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
- Category – Crime Suspense Mystery
- Length – 386 Pages
- Read Time – 2 Days
- GR Rating – 3 Stars
In this book we meet “Jules” Julia at a time when her life is taking a drastic turn as she receives notice that her sister “Nel”, Danielle, has apparently committed suicide. As next of kin it’s her responsibility to go back to the town she ran from as an emerging adult & never wanted to go back to & tidy up her sisters estate. We learn of their estranged relationship, what led up to it & more importantly how it all connects.
While there are crimes & bodies throughout this story it didn’t read like crime suspense, this book felt more like a myth fiction. The myth surrounding the town of Beckford seemed to be the central plot of the book even though it was in no way related for real to the actual story of the book, in my humble opinion. Known as a “suicide place”, Beckford has a sordid history of womens’ bodies turning up in the river. This is where I felt the story did too much back, forth, lefts & rights, the way in which the other stories of dead women integrated was confusing & I get that we’re “seeing” this all play out from Jules pov mostly & thus we’re being given all of the same ‘fake clues’ as she is but still it was just confusing. So many characters, so many traumas & dramas, I didn’t take notes while reading this book & this book needed notes. In the end unravelling the truth of Nels demise was a tangled web of secrets & lies. Secrets, lies & a long list of predatory men.
( I just don’t always want to read “notes necessary books” you know *Shrug* )
Spoiler the detective with the S name did it! Sorry I usually try not to spoil plots but by the time we finally get this information, legit at the very end, I forgot what mystery we were solving again.
I’ll acknowledge here that, as I’ve mentioned in other reviews I’m a mood reader, maybe I just wasn’t in the “right mood” for this book when I read it.
The S detective pushed Nel from the cliff because he couldn’t cope with the memories of his mothers death caused by his father, she’d learned of this from someone else in town & brought him to the cliff where he’d witnessed his dad kill his mom as a child, desperate to unlock his memories. Instead he snapped & ended her life in an instant. There are other players in this story, other moving parts but that’s truly the actual central plot of the book.
Ultimately I rated this book 3 stars, it wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t great. Too many additional pieces thrown into the mix for me, I could’ve done without the whole town lore twist. Just my humble reader opinion. Thank you for joining me for another review, happy reading.
- Have you read this book?
- What was your favorite part? (N/A)
- What was your least favorite part? (N/A)
- How many stars do you rate this book?
Hasta la próxima – V
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