Into the Water

By Paula Hawkins

Rating: 3/5 Stairs

I was really excited to read this book when I heard it was coming out. I absolutely loved The Girl on the Train, and looked forward to reading more from Ms. Hawkins.

Don’t get me wrong, Into the Water was good, but not Girl on the Train great.

Right from the beginning, I had trouble getting into the story. It is told through fairly short chapters, and each chapter is a narration from one of ten plus different characters. (Some are in first person, while others are third.) In the beginning, I found myself spending a lot of time flipping back and forth between the chapters trying to orient the characters and their relationships in my mind.

Once I finally understood who had died and who the characters were, the story started making more sense. I wanted to keep reading to understand more about the deaths in the water and the backstory of the characters. However, there was a lot going on besides the present day mystery – events from the town’s history ranging from thirty years ago to over one hundred years ago. Ms. Hawkins was weaving a lot of threads together – some worked for me, and others felt unnecessary.

The core of the story is interesting, but it took a long time for me to get into the book and to weed through the extra story lines created by the mystery of the water. I’m thinking that I may have enjoyed the book more if I hadn’t read The Girl on the Train, since I came into this novel with a certain expectation.