Review: Into The Water by Paula Hawkins

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: Unfortunately this was one of those books for me that didn't live up to the hype. I did finish reading it and did take some enjoyment from the main storyline, it was interesting and something I'd not seen done before. The structure of this novel though really baffled me, if left me quite confused and so really affected my enjoyment of the book. I think that the structure was multiple narrative, something which i normally love but there were just too many separate bits to this narration that I found it very hard to follow. There were first, second and third person narrative. Some part of the narrative were set in the past and some parts of the narrative were extracts from a book that one of the characters was writing. If there had just been narratives changing ONE of these variables, it would have been fine but it was just a little too much. 

Having said that, I did enjoy the main storyline and getting to know the very main characters. Obviously we know from the synopsis that Nel has died in these mysterious waters and it is being class a suicide but we know right from the word go that there are differing opinions on that. It was really interesting finding out about the other people that have died in these same waters and the mysteries surrounding their deaths and how their deaths fit into Nel's death too. It was also interesting finding out about her relationship with her family but I did enjoy trying to work out what exactly happened when Nel died. 

In terms of characters, it is really difficult to judge whether I liked these characters or thought they were realistic because we jump between characters so often. It was interesting getting to know where Nel fitted into the community. I enjoyed watching the relationship between Nel's sister Jules and her daughter develop. I found myself very suspicious of one of the families in the community and found a couple of the other characters very difficult to actually visualise because they didn't feel entirely whole or realistic. 

The thriller aspect of this novel is obviously there because I kept reading until the end but I wasn't particularly desperate to find out what had happened because there was so much else going on. I wasn't filled with adrenaline like I am with some other books and so I think that was another reason why this book came up a little short for me. If you like a big cast of characters and being shaded from the truth by a whole load of other storylines then definitely give this one a go but I couldn't honestly recommend this book. 

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