Into The Water

by Paula Hawkins

Aldwick Revival 'Between the Covers' Book Group

Into The Water by Paula Hawkins, published 2017

NO SPOILERS!

Some of the Aldwick Revival ‘Between the Covers’ book club ladies read hardcopy books, sourced from the library or online; others are confirmed Kindle users; and others prefer audiobooks. I’m a long-time audiobook listener: I have to be on holiday to sit and read a book, and then only on Kindle nowadays, as luggage allowance has shrunk in inverse proportion to my clothes’ expansion! I have acres of shelves crowded with my favourite authors of days gone by, when I would greedily snap up offers in Borders, a huge local book superstore. I still love to see these mini works of art, side by side with all their glorious, coloured bindings and typefaces that editors and graphic designers will have agonised over for many weeks. Sadly, for a long time, I could barely remember the name of a book I was hearing, let alone the author’s name or book jacket design. With 510 titles in my Audible library, and many more that were deleted over the years, I was struggling to remember them in any way by the following day, already ensconced as I was in my next tale. That’s where being a book club member has made me focus. I now write a review about each book I’ve read; I consider my fellow members and whether they would enjoy it; I concentrate more fully on the characters and the plot lines, how it’s narrated, and the development of the story and the relationships within that. I ponder what the discussion points may be at the book club meeting.

Paula Hawkins wrote 'The Girl On The Train', a book which we have mostly all heard of, even if we haven’t read the book or seen the film, so we anticipated enjoying her novel ‘Into The Water’. It scored 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon for the reading version. Sadly, two of our members couldn’t attend, but the rest of us gathered at my house, and whilst eating too much food, we discussed it. Carol read the paperback, Edna read the Kindle version, Jan, Derry and I listened through Audible. I think it may be a book that didn’t do well in the spoken word version as all of us found it incredibly confusing to know who was speaking in each chapter. The narrator announces for example, “Lena” at the beginning of the chapter, but until I had listened for a while (chapter 10, if I’m being perfectly honest), I had no context as to who ‘Lena’ was or her relationship to the ‘you’ she was talking to in her head.

All the chapters were written in the first person as though the narrator was writing or speaking to someone, although the someone they spoke to was often long gone, drowned in the Drowning Pool. Those who read a hardcopy or via e-reader found it slightly easier to skip back and reread sections to see who was who.

When listening to a book, I tend to get into the mind of the main protagonist and ‘take their side’. I felt no connection to these characters as I didn’t get introduced to them properly at the beginning. There were too many people speaking, with no clear protagonist to identify with. It was an effort to switch the story on sometimes.

I am guilty of zoning out when I’m not fully engaged with a book or TV show, as I am always doing something else, such as housework, drawing, sewing or walking the dogs. I found I kept on zoning out this story, and I’d find myself rewinding for whole chapters at a time, or not bothering and missing lumps of the story.

The plot evolved by going backwards and forwards in time, which was also hard to follow at first, with no context to connect the events. Slowly I got to know the events and relationships and felt like I was getting to grips with the story.

As I believe is her style, the author gave us a twist in the ending, but I don’t think anyone was that surprised by it, having had an inkling previously that it was heading that way. The way the sting in the tail was written was disappointing – a tiny kick delivered drily in the epilogue that failed to shock or move me in any way.

From chapter 10 onwards, I listened to it with slightly more enjoyment, but others seemed a lot happier with it than I did, maybe because they were able to focus better than I managed on this. I think the readers rated it more highly than the listeners, which is evidence enough that some books definitely benefit from being read. It was 11.5 hours long but seemed slightly longer.

All that said, Paula Hawkins is considered to be a very good and successful writer, as proven by her incredible sales figures. I had no problem with the way she sets down the paragraphs or the language she uses, and had I been more focused, I’m sure it would have been a much better listen, with five narrators taking turns as the various characters and each one doing a grand job with accents and voices.

I gave it 6/10, arguably based on my own inability to focus if I’m not grabbed in chapter 1, but others gave it 7/10. It’s quite a low score for such a successful author.

Our next book is based on a true story. Raynor Winn writes about her journey with her husband, Moth. It has fabulous reviews and scores 4.5 out of 5 on Amazon. As it’s Christmas, we’ll be holding our December meeting in a restaurant.

Our evening book club is full, but if you'd be interested in starting a secondary group, please let me know. I'd be happy to assist the setup. If you're an avid reader like we are, read The Salt Path and let us know what you think!

Love and hugs, Sarah S x