"A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.
Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she'd never return."
I had read some reviews of this book, but I wanted to read it for myself. And, I agree with some of the reviews: this book is a mess.
Like a lot of readers, I really enjoyed The Girl on the Train, and so I had looked forward to Paula Hawkins' new book, anticipating that it would be just as good. However, there are so many people to keep track of, and so many storylines, and some back-and-forth in time happening here that I found it difficult to remember who was who, and to keep track of the story. Additionally, I didn't find some of the characters compelling, which meant that I wasn't always eager to turn the pages. Sure, I was curious to find out just what the heck happened, but I wasn't so intrigued that I was putting off housework to read this book. For me, leaving everything and just reading, indulgently, for an hour or two means I've got a really good book in hand. Hawkins throws in some twists and some red herrings, but by the end of the story, it's still not completely clear about what has happened to some of the people (and honestly, it's not clear as to why the reader should really care). As Kirkus Reviews put it, "Let's call it sophomore slump and hope for better things." This isn't an awful book; it's just not the book that I think a lot of us were hoping for.
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