reviews of into the water by paula hawkins

At the pool, Jules’ friends teased her as she realizes she has bled all over herself from her period. Jules recounts the day in 1993 when she had thrown herself into the Drowning Pool. Part 1, Section 2 mostly centers around Nel’s funeral, with flashbacks and stories from the past interspersed. It recounts the histories of all the women who had drowned in it. The Drowning Pool is introduced as the novel Nel Abbott worked on before she died. Nickie Sage is introduced as a local psychic woman. Louise recounts her grief over losing her daughter and unanswered questions about her motives for suicide. Mark and Louise meet at the riverbank and the reader learns of the death of Katie Whittaker (Louise’s daughter and Mark’s former student).

Josh is the second perspective told, and he notices his mother’s early morning return to the house to tell her family about Nel’s death. Woven throughout Jules, Erin, and Lena’s stories and interactions in this section are the perspectives of Mark Henderson, Josh Whittaker, Louise Whitaker, the Drowning Pool, and Nickie Sage. The section ends with Jules finding an engraved cigarette lighter with the initials “LS” in her sister’s room. Erin, one of the the detectives, asks Detective Sean Townsend about the missing bracelet and he denies finding one on the body. Jules goes to the hospital to ID her sister, where she notices her sister’s missing bracelet. Lena is angry and filled with grief and guilt, convinced her mother committed suicide. She travels back to Beckford to go to her childhood home, where she meets her niece Lena. Part 1, Section 1 begins with Jules' voice as she learns about her sister’s death. The reader hears the perspectives from the characters Jules, Lena, Josh, Louise, Mark, Nickie, Erin, and Nel (also called the drowning pool). In Part 1, Section 1 (or the first 60 pages) the narrative voice switches 14 times. Though various pieces of the story are told from each character’s perspective, the novel primarily speaks from Jules’ and Lena’s perspectives. The story, however, also goes back in time to 1993, 1983, 1920, and 1679. The story centers around a small town called Beckford, England and mostly takes place in current time around the summer, fall, and winter of 2015. For the purposes of this guide, the first three parts are split into two sections, as they are longer, and Part 4 is kept as one. Some of the vignettes are told from the first person, and others are told from the third person perspective. Each part is broken into several page mini vignettes from the perspective of various characters labeled in the beginning of the story. Into the Water is a fiction story told in four parts, with no chapter headings. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Hawkins, Paula.

Reviews of into the water by paula hawkins