Summer Reads: Into The Water

Riverhead Books; 400 pages; Amazon

If you've been following this blog for the last few weeks, then you would know I've been reading the new novel Into The Water by Paula Hawkins, the author of The Girl On The Train. I had checked out the book from the library and it has taken me over three weeks to finish it.

From just looking at the cover art, you can clearly tell the novel is a murder mystery, and that's exactly what it is, well, sorta. The plot centers on the mysterious death of a woman, Danielle Abbott, who was found at the bottom of the river, otherwise known as the Drowning Pool to the locals.

Over the years, many people have died in the Drowning Pool, so it was no shock to anyone that Danielle died there. However, she isn't the most recent death there, as the body of a teenage girl was found in the Drowning Pool earlier in the summer. Are the two deaths connected?

Final Thoughts: I had watched The Girl On The Train earlier in the year and I liked the movie. I own the novel of the same name, but I have never read it yet. Anyhow, I was looking forward to reading Into The Water. I had requested a review copy from the publisher, but I never heard back, so I'm guessing there were no more review copies available. I waited until the book was officially released, and then I reserved the book at my local library.

To make a long story short, lets just say I'm disappointed with the novel. To start with, there are way too many different narrations; changing point-of-views with almost every chapter. There are also too many characters, making the story very difficult to follow. To make it worse, I couldn't tell the differences between any of the characters, all the first-person narratives sounded exactly the same. If you're going to use multiple point-of-views, you need to make each character's voice unique.

While the murder mystery plot sounds intriguing on paper, I found it to be extremely boring.

Overall, Into The Water is an overwritten and overly-hyped disaster. It's one of the worst novel I have ever read. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone!