INTO THE WATER
by Paula Hawkins
When I picked up Into The Water, I was looking for fluff—something that would keep me engaged and turning pages without challenging me to think about much except what might happen next. Based on having read and loved Hawkins’ previous smash hit, The Girl On The Train, I figured this would probably fit the bill.
Set in a small town in England, the plot revolves around the deaths of several women in a nearby river. The most recent is a writer and photographer who has been working on a research project about this very spot known as the drowning pool. Town lore has it that the pool was used to drown witches and later became a suicide spot for unhappy wives. But Nel Abbott doesn't fit the usual profile and neither did Katie, the teenager who apparently drowned herself less than a year before.
Hawkins uses many different narrators which allows the mystery to unravel slowly as the reader sifts through who can be trusted, what is fiction and how so many of these unfortunate deaths tie together. Although the author falls a bit short of the bar she set herself in Girl On The Train, Into The Water is an engaging and speedy read with a little something extra that makes you think about how we judge and punish women for their choices. (Lily)
