Into the Water - Paula Hawkins

Description

In the last days before her death, Nel called her sister. Jules didn’t pick up the phone, ignoring her plea for help.

Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules has been dragged back to the one place she hoped she had escaped for good, to care for the teenage girl her sister left behind.

But Jules is afraid. So afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of knowing that Nel would never have jumped.

And most of all she’s afraid of the water, and the place they call the Drowning Pool . . .

Review

After The Girl on the Train I couldn't wait for this book, hoping it would be just as good. I know a lot of people who did not get on with The Girl on the Train, which I just couldn't understand. So, I began to read the latest book from Paula Hawkins "Into the Water" and I hated it!

I had my review in my head already - if you didn't like Girl on the Train then you definitely won't like this. At least TGOTT was set in amongst every day life. Whereas this began with what felt like The Crucible - references to others who had drowned in the pool decades ago across the centuries. People hearing voices and some being drawn to the pool - to drown.

I began to wonder whether I should just call it a day - too many characters each with their own chapters - a difficult time recognising who was narrating unless I referred back to the chapter heading - was it worth my time?

Then in part two of the book it turned into a regular detective novel. Why I wondered had there been a need for all the superstition about the pool and suchlike. It was at the end of the day a modern whodunnit. The characters began to be fleshed out and some secrets were outed - I was beginning to understand what was happening.

By the final part of the book I really wanted to know how this book was going to end. How did other happenings in the book fit into Nel drowning.  I got to a few pages before the end and all was made clear - a great ending. However - that was not the ending, characters began to have their own chapter again telling their tale. Wow! it was like a cannonball rushing at you - the real ending........

I'm giving this book 5 out of 5 stars although when I began it was more like 3 out of 5! I marvel at how Paula Hawkins came up with this web of a novel. I ended up revisiting parts of the novel to read what I now realised were glaring clues to the initiated.