Into the Water - Book Review
Genre: Thriller | Fiction
Author: Paula Hawkins
Year: 2017
Pages: 448
Content warning: Domestic violence, sexual abuse, suicidal and self-harm themes
As my well-worn edition will tell you, Into the Water is one of my favourite thrillers. It has the perfect blend of suspense and intrigue. Buried secrets slowly rise to the surface in this small community where nothing is as it seems.
Into the Water takes us to the town of Beckford, known for its Drowning Pool that silences troublesome women. After the death of her estranged sister, Jules is forced to go back to Beckford to care for her niece, back to the place she’s been desperate to leave behind. The police are saying Nel jumped, but despite the sisters’ fractured relationship, Jules knows this can’t be true. In this town, everyone is hiding a secret. And who knows how long it will take for these hidden truths to rise to the surface?
Into the Water is an ideal thriller. Its contents reveal twist after twist, documenting the events of multiple narrators in a small English town. The devil really is in the details of this book, as past and present intertwine; the most insignificant detail can be relevant later on. I found myself frantically turning the pages, eager to find out what happened next.
The plot is multifaceted; while Nel’s death is at the forefront of the novel, there are other mysteries afoot. Various subplots come together as you dive further and further into the narrative. Hawkins uses multiple characters to tell her story, which I initially struggled with when I first picked up Into the Water. Some characters are crucial to the telling of the story, while others are merely there to add context to the Drowning Pool.
Despite the long and initially confusing list of characters, I think this novel is superb. The plot, the characters and the writing all come together to create a compelling thriller. In my humble opinion, it’s just as good, if not more so, than Hawkins’ debut novel The Girl on the Train. It’ll leave you guessing until the very end.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★.5