Review : Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

Published by : Transworld Publishers (Penguin Random House)

2 May 2017

Copy : Hardback - Reviewer purchase

The Blurb

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 . . .

The Very Pink Notebook Review

One of the things that stands out in this book is the sheer amount of characters and not merely secondary ones, they all have their own voice by way of their own chapter.  I have to admit, if I had a break in reading this book sometimes I would have to go through and remind myself of who was who - but each characters is needed, none are superfluous to the plot and it is quite a feat on behalf of the author to have been able to create so many unique voices in one book, ranging from a young teenage girl, to a grieving mother, to a senior gentleman.

Protagonist, Jules, is forced to return to her childhood home following the death - suspected suicide - of her sister Nel.  Nel leaves behind one daughter, a trail of destruction and a lot of loose ends.  Jules find herself needing to tie up those loose ends with explosive consequences.

As I mentioned the book is structured in the hugely popular chapter by character voice and this moves the highly complex plot along at a good pace.  You quickly learn Jules home town is a place full of secrets.  A small town whereby everyone thinks they know everyone else, that there couldn't be anywhere to really hide anything - turns out there are plenty and all the inhabitants have hidden things at some point, either out of fear, stupidity, self protection or trying to protect others.  But a small town can only hold so many secrets before it starts straining at the seams and once the dams burst there is no stopping what happens next.

That is this book.  It sort of unravels slowly starting with the newest information and slowly unpicking the rest.  Recent events start to link to past ones like a connect the dots.  Many authors may have struggled to pull it all together because as well as having an awful lot of characters this novel also has an awful lot of plot.

Hawkins uses 'excerpts' from Nel's contentious research about the history of the towns 'drowning pool' to give the reader the necessary history, it also gives nice little breaks from the narrative of the present day situation.  The Drowning Pool is the central location in the novel and it is nice that it is almost given it's own voice.

With so many threads to pull together it could have easily have been difficult to produce an ending to tie them all up in a satisfactory manner, but this is achieved, the plethora of unanswered questions all get a conclusion.

It was a pleasure to read such a hyped book and not be disappointed.