Review of "Into the Water" by Paula Hawkins
by Nicole S.
As promised, I am giving you my review of the second book that was picked for my virtual book club. One of the great things about participating in book clubs is you get to know a sense of other people’s reading tastes and discover books you normally wouldn’t have picked for yourself. For our second book I got to pick the title which ended up being “Into the Water” by Paula Hawkins.
Check it out from Aurora Public Library here!
Paula Hawkins was originally a journalist for 15 years before she became a bestselling author. Her most popular book, “The Girl on the Train”, ended up becoming a bestseller worldwide selling almost 20 million copies! It was then made into a movie starring Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson and Justin Theroux in 2016. Both “The Girl on the Train” and “Into the Water” are great examples of a psychological thriller.
Into the Water tells about how a single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Not much earlier, a teenage girl was found dead in the same river – and these are not the only women to have met the same dark, watery fate. Each death brings up more and more secrets that were meant to stay hidden. Fifteen-year-old Lena Abbott is left to be cared for by her estranged aunt Julia. As Julia, fearful of her once-home, stays to care for Lena, she learns more about her sister, the residents of Beckford and the secrets they kept submerged.
I was such a big fan of Hawkins's first novel, “The Girl on the Train”. When I found out she wrote another stand alone novel I knew I just had to read it. One of my favorite elements of a psychological thriller is the unreliable narratives. The characters telling you the story may not be entirely truthful or are only telling you the story from their perspective. As time goes on you find out more and more of the story from other characters and it is now your job to piece together the truth. That is the same with this story. The story looks at many different character perspectives (from Jules Abbott to Lena to the neighbor Louise Whittaker and so on) and each one is telling you part of the story as well as their own. It’s up to you to weave them together to find the truth. Each character has their own secrets that you discover and you learn that not every person is good or bad. You make your own judgments based on each character’s actions. You also start to identify with one or more of the characters as time goes on. One of the other elements I enjoy is the suspense and the emotions you feel during a read like this. There is the original question of whether Lena Abbott’s mother, Danielle (Nel), committed suicide or was murdered. At each chapter that question gets more and more muddled and you are just along for the ride as you find out what really happened with Nel and the other women that were found in the river. It is a real page turner that throws multiple curveballs and leaves you at the end with chills.
For those that enjoy psychological thrillers like this, check out authors like Gillian Flynn and Megan Abbott.
Next time I will tell you about our third pick which falls into the fantasy category, “The Last Wish: Introducing The Witcher” by Andrzej Sapkowski.
|