A Mystery Novel Without Mystery | A Review of Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

As most of you know, I'm not much of a mystery reader. I don't consciously avoid or dislike mystery novels, but it's not a genre I typically gravitate towards. That said however, I don't shy away from the opportunity to read a mystery novel, which is why when I found a free copy of Paula Hawkins' Into the Water I decided to give it a go.

The novel started out promisingly: there were some intriguing characters, unexplainable patterns and other odd occurrences, and despite the switching character POVs (which I can't say I'm fond of), I thought I might actually enjoy the book overall. For the first half of the novel I found myself totally engrossed in the storyline, wanting to get to the bottom of the mystery at hand. 

Unfortunately said mystery lacked any real elements of, well, mystery. Typically, great mystery novels have shocking epiphanies, during which a certain character unlocks a key piece of information or there's a grand and intense moment where all is revealed. Into the Water however fails to have any suspense or surprising revelations. Due to the rotating POVs (which cycle through almost every character in the book and annoyingly switch between first- and third-person), information is just revealed through characters' thoughts or dialogue. Perpetrators simply admit their actions to the audience, and then go on to explain why. This breakdown of suspense and mystery ruin what perhaps could have been a better novel.

The book also plays into a lot of mystery stereotypes. There are troubled characters, some leading double lives, whose actions produce predictably devastating consequences that are commonly found throughout literature and cinema. On a similar note, the dialogue in the novel is particularly painful to read at times, coming off as very exaggerated and unnatural. 

Throughout the novel Hawkins tries to do a clever thematic concept that toys with the idea of memories not being stagnant but rather constantly reshaped as our perception of reality changes with the passage of time. While a somewhat compelling notion, the theme lacks depth and feels like it is lazily tossed into random portions of text. Overall her thematic expressions read like an assigned topic for an English class writing assignment, rather than a clever message hidden between the lines.

What's most upsetting however is that the novel lacks a satisfying ending, partially due to the lack of mystery, but also because certain storylines are not given real conclusions. Several characters just disappear or end up in random places, and the explanations of these circumstances are less than satisfactory. 

To summarize, Into the Water is a novel that portrays itself as having depth and intrigue, but is overall quite surface-level in its storytelling.