Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.45 AVERAGE
3.45 AVERAGE
Forget about whether or not you loved Girl on the Train or how much you want it to be the same book. If you're looking for an unputdownable chilling summer read, look no further! Remember in the Neverending Story when the kid dashes for an Apple to finish the book? That was me, but I made tacos and read at the same time!
This is a strange story of inappropriate love (all kinds - teacher for student, father for son's wife, unfaithful husband's, etc) and murder (lots of murder).
It's difficult to read at first due to the number of viewpoints, but I found it impressive that as you get used to the writing you find that each character has their own voice and you know who is speaking without reading their name at the top of the page.
Part of me wanted to give this a 5 due to writing excellence, but another part said 3* due to the weird themes throughout the book. So I settled for 4*.
It's difficult to read at first due to the number of viewpoints, but I found it impressive that as you get used to the writing you find that each character has their own voice and you know who is speaking without reading their name at the top of the page.
Part of me wanted to give this a 5 due to writing excellence, but another part said 3* due to the weird themes throughout the book. So I settled for 4*.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I like paula hawkins writing style but I found the story a bit lacking. i preferred her first book more.
Su narrativa es súper atrapante, lo terminé en dos días. Crea un ambiente donde te hace dudar de todos y cada uno de los personajes porque la historia se cuenta de todos los ángulos posibles y se ve que cada uno tiene sus motivaciones. Lo bueno de los distintos puntos de vista es conocer la historia en 360°, lo malo es difícil seguirle el hilo. Fue difícil en los primeros capítulos saber quién es quién. Fue medianamente predictivo sin embargo el culpable de la muerte de Nel no lo ví venir. Moraleja: tus recuerdos pueden no ser del todo ciertos, descubrir así que tu vida fue una mentira. "No soy quien creo ser. No era quien creía ser."
An enjoyable read. I was chuffed to find it is set in my neck of the woods, the northeast of England where I grew up. I didn’t know this when I first started reading but as soon as I did I imagined most of the characters with Geordie accents. So this definitely added to my enjoyment of the book. I think this is probably a 3.5* book but I’m rounding up because of it’s readability. It’s a page turner. It probably isn’t as mysterious as The Girl on the Train but I enjoyed it more. I actually liked the viewpoints of different characters. (I was getting sick of the main protagonist on TGOTT by the end. I think TGOTT suffered because I read it very soon after Gone Girl which is a blinder. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy TGOTT. I did and would probably rate it slightly higher than this one. )
Brief synopsis: Nel, an author obsessed with a river where lots of women have drowned falls foul to the river herself. Her sister arrives in town to take care of her teenage daughter but isn’t convinced by the official verdict of suicide. Neither are the police but resources are limited and so begins a race against the clock to get to the bottom of her death.
The story is told in first person accounts from: Jules, the sister; Lena, the daughter; Erin, a detective who has been transferred to investigate the case; and Josh, the younger brother of Katie, a teenage girl who drowned in the same river a few months earlier and was Lena’s best friend. There are also third person accounts from the perspective of: Nickie, a local psychic; Mark, a teacher; Louise, the mother of Josh and Katie; Sean, the local DI, his wife, Helen and his father, Patrick, whose wife also drowned in the river 30 years earlier. Additionally there are excerpts from Nel’s book, of historical stories of drownings. I haven’t yet figured out the relevance of the first versus third person accounts but I’ll ponder on that one. Jules’ voice is speaking to her sister the whole time, and it seems like she also literally does this as other characters refer to her moving her mouth as though she is silently talking to herself. I didn’t find it confusing to follow so many characters and many of them only have a few chapters. Most of it is told from the perspective of Jules, Lena and Erin.
In short, this is a good read and I recommend it.
Brief synopsis: Nel, an author obsessed with a river where lots of women have drowned falls foul to the river herself. Her sister arrives in town to take care of her teenage daughter but isn’t convinced by the official verdict of suicide. Neither are the police but resources are limited and so begins a race against the clock to get to the bottom of her death.
The story is told in first person accounts from: Jules, the sister; Lena, the daughter; Erin, a detective who has been transferred to investigate the case; and Josh, the younger brother of Katie, a teenage girl who drowned in the same river a few months earlier and was Lena’s best friend. There are also third person accounts from the perspective of: Nickie, a local psychic; Mark, a teacher; Louise, the mother of Josh and Katie; Sean, the local DI, his wife, Helen and his father, Patrick, whose wife also drowned in the river 30 years earlier. Additionally there are excerpts from Nel’s book, of historical stories of drownings. I haven’t yet figured out the relevance of the first versus third person accounts but I’ll ponder on that one. Jules’ voice is speaking to her sister the whole time, and it seems like she also literally does this as other characters refer to her moving her mouth as though she is silently talking to herself. I didn’t find it confusing to follow so many characters and many of them only have a few chapters. Most of it is told from the perspective of Jules, Lena and Erin.
In short, this is a good read and I recommend it.
I just finished Into the Water this morning, and when the narrator (I was listening to the audiobook) stated the closing "thank you for listening" and stated the author's name, I was surprised. I knew at one point when I was picking out this book that it was written by the author of The Girl on the Train. I did know that. But then, somewhere along the line, while I was listening to it, I for some reason attributed it to Ruth Ware, the author of In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10. I don't really know why I attributed the wrong author to this book, but I did it so thoroughly that last night when I was talking to my mom, I actually told her the wrong author. I'm usually really quite good at remember authors, grouping together their books, etc., so this was a puzzler.
So then I started thinking "why?" did I think this was written by Ruth Ware and not Paula Hawkins. Ok, they are both English (I think - to this American, the narrative voice sounds pretty similar) and the audiobook narration sounds similar. They both write about bad things happening to women. But here was the difference in my mind (before reading this). What strikes me most about Ware's books is the creepy locations, the eerie settings for her novels. There is the extremely isolated country house, and also the spooky cruise ship. And what struck me most about Hawkins' prior work was the shifting perspective and unreliable narrator, but that this was all occurring in a rather "regular" place. Girl on the Train seemed so universally located that the film actually moved it to a different country, and the thought I had about that it was it could happen anywhere. Not so with this book. Into the Water was very tied to this creepy little village with its super dark legends and that awful drowning pool. It had a "Ruth Ware" type of creepy setting, which is why I think I got the author confused. I also didn't think that we had a particularly unreliable narrator, and I was perfectly fine with that.
I liked the main character, her long sad history with this creepy little town and her longstanding feud with her now dead sister. I liked the way to interwoven small town feel of this little burg, and police officer Erin's barging in as an outsider. I liked the daft old lady / fortune teller, knower of many things, roaming around town complaining that no-one was listening to her. I wasn't quite as big of a fan of the fat shaming. But, I guess it fit in with the whole misogynist tone of the setting. I also liked Lena, the daughter of the most recent drowned woman and the best friend of the teen whole also drowned earlier the same year.
I think they wrapped up just enough of the details at the end so you can draw your own conclusions, but that reasonable book lovers could debate it, and I'm a fan of those endings. Now I guess I need to track down The Lying Game, which is Ruth Ware's new book, and see if it is more like Ware or more like Hawkins.
So then I started thinking "why?" did I think this was written by Ruth Ware and not Paula Hawkins. Ok, they are both English (I think - to this American, the narrative voice sounds pretty similar) and the audiobook narration sounds similar. They both write about bad things happening to women. But here was the difference in my mind (before reading this). What strikes me most about Ware's books is the creepy locations, the eerie settings for her novels. There is the extremely isolated country house, and also the spooky cruise ship. And what struck me most about Hawkins' prior work was the shifting perspective and unreliable narrator, but that this was all occurring in a rather "regular" place. Girl on the Train seemed so universally located that the film actually moved it to a different country, and the thought I had about that it was it could happen anywhere. Not so with this book. Into the Water was very tied to this creepy little village with its super dark legends and that awful drowning pool. It had a "Ruth Ware" type of creepy setting, which is why I think I got the author confused. I also didn't think that we had a particularly unreliable narrator, and I was perfectly fine with that.
I liked the main character, her long sad history with this creepy little town and her longstanding feud with her now dead sister. I liked the way to interwoven small town feel of this little burg, and police officer Erin's barging in as an outsider. I liked the daft old lady / fortune teller, knower of many things, roaming around town complaining that no-one was listening to her. I wasn't quite as big of a fan of the fat shaming. But, I guess it fit in with the whole misogynist tone of the setting. I also liked Lena, the daughter of the most recent drowned woman and the best friend of the teen whole also drowned earlier the same year.
I think they wrapped up just enough of the details at the end so you can draw your own conclusions, but that reasonable book lovers could debate it, and I'm a fan of those endings. Now I guess I need to track down The Lying Game, which is Ruth Ware's new book, and see if it is more like Ware or more like Hawkins.
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Too much jumping around and it moved really slowly.