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lindseybc 's review for:
Into the Water
by Paula Hawkins
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.