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3.45 AVERAGE
3.45 AVERAGE
I changed this to 3 stars down from 4 because the more I thought about it the more I realized I hated the ending.
“Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.”
This was a VAST improvement from her last book. While several of the characters were difficult to like, I didn't find myself hating any of them as much as I did in Girl on the Train. I was worried bc a lot of reviews said that the multiple POV narrative and the large cast of characters made the novel unreadable. I didn't find that to be true at all. Yes, you had to pay attention, but I never felt overwhelmed. Overall a much better read than I expected.
The overabundance of characters and convoluted writing really made this a generally terrible reading experience. It fluctuates between first and third person perspectives at random and from character to character. The mystery is not as appealing as the mystery that Hawkins gave us in "The Girl on the Train." I skimmed through a lot of this because I had invested time in it and felt that I had to finish reading. It picks up with some nice tension with about 100 pages left, but even that dwindles with loose writing. It had a lot of the predictability of "Girl," but without that satisfying ending.
Tl;dr: Lacks resonance and clear construction of writing.
Tl;dr: Lacks resonance and clear construction of writing.
Few too many characters for my own taste. This is not a easy summer beach read. The viewpoints switched often and the fact that even the point of view narration flipped from third to first to Jules talking directly to "you" (aka her deceased sister) made things more difficult to follow.
A good story but a difficult read. A lot of characters just dumped on you, in short bursts, and you have to figure out who's who and what actually happened. I suggest reading it as straight-through as you can - I had to start over after putting it down for a bit, and then want to start over again now that I'm done because I read it in too choppy chunks. I think it would be good as a movie because the visuals -faces to names, for example - would help in decoding it.
I just felt it got far-fetched on one end and then fairly predictable on the other. I just wanted to finish it and be done with it. Not into it at all.
The story just never got me interested. Maybe me. Maybe the book. Not sure which.
A bit of a slow beginning but by the middle I was hooked. Twists until the very last page. Truly enjoyed the characters, particularly Lena as she’s a sassy bitch that murked a grown ass man!!!
It was light quick read. Sort of a twist at the end. Not great. Not terrible.