I greatly enjoyed Paula Hawkins’ debut novel, “Girl on the Train.” I read it as an audiobook and found it compelling and interesting from beginning to end. A twisty thriller with unreliable narrators and shifting truths that kept you on your toes. I was thus excited to embark on her second novel, “Into the Water” but did not have the same experience and won’t be recommending this one to others. A sleepy English town is rocked by the “suicide” by water of one of its […]
Review roundup! Female-centric thillers
I badly need to catch up with writing reviews, but don’t really have the inclination to write long and individual reviews for books that were mostly ‘meh’. I sometimes pick up thrillers when I need a break from fantasy, and this review covers several that I’ve read since the early summer, in order that I read them. In some cases I have to cast my mind back rather a long way–and some definitely made an impression more than others. Most of these I read pretty […]
Maybe the better book?
K. Yeah, I read this book several books ago. I think I remember it. Okay yeah, it’s coming back to me. I read Girl on the Train, and I actually preferred this one. There were a lot of characters, but it was easier to follow. The book takes place in a small town with a serious safety hazard – there’s a pond right below a big cliff and it seems to be a popular kid spot? So yeah there’s a history of people dying there. Of […]
Murder and misogynists
I’d read The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and enjoyed it in a disturbing, Gone Girl sort of way. There are a lot of similarities between The Girl on the Train and Hawkins’ latest novel, Into the Water (2017). The characters are messed up, the men are horrible, and a woman is dead under mysterious circumstances. Jules Abbott has been estranged from her sister, Nel, for years when Jules hears from the police that Nel was found dead in “The Drowning Pool.” In Beckford, a small town where the two sisters […]