Into the Water, by Paula Hawkins | Suspense | Psychological Thriller | Murder | Book Review

Everybody Has a Secret

Some people will love this book. Others will hate it. A lot of people will be somewhere in between.

I thought this would be a difficult review to write.

The truth is this is one of the most straightforward books I've read in a long time. Some people are going to love it and some people are going to hate it, but for most people it will be "just okay." Its solid three-star rating on Goodreads is an accurate depiction of the enjoyment-factor behind this book. 

For the most part, it's "just okay."

When I started reading, my first thought was "this is a three-star book." Now bear in mind I start every book out at three stars and add or subtract stars as I go along, bearing in mind the current atmosphere of the writing, the story, and how much I am or am not enjoying the book. MOST books gain or lose a star in the first chapter or two. 

I enjoy most books I read, so most books go from three to five quickly, then deteriorate after that. But this one? This one was instantly a three-star book. I knew before I finished the first "part" that it would be a three-star book.

Turns out I was wrong, but I'll get into that in a moment.

One review I read said this book isn't a page turner, but the reviewer couldn't stop turning the pages. (I apologize, because although I know where I saw this review, I can no longer find it to quote it or credit it directly. If this was your review, please comment for credit!) That is EXACTLY how I felt about this book, at least in the beginning.

The basic premise of this book is this: Ten of the eleven narrative characters in the story has a secret they are keeping from at least most of the others. The eleventh is trying to reveal the secrets of the other ten. (If this sounds a little like Pretty Little Liars [the television series, not the book series, which I haven't read], I had the same thought.)

Each character holds a single component of the mystery. As the narrators reveal their secrets (slowly) to the reader, the reader can piece together the story of how the central character died. 

That is BASICALLY what this book is. It also claims to be about memory and how elastic memory can be. While this is ESSENTIALLY true, I wouldn't recommend this book to people who enjoy books centering about how flexible memory creates an alternate reality in the mind of the person remembering. This book isn't REALLY about that.

As I usually do, I want to talk to you about what you need to know before you commit to this book. The next section is safe to read if you wish to avoid spoilers, but will footnote an important spoiler appropriately. Please do NOT read the footnote if you do not wish to be spoiled but please DO read the footnote if the section referencing it pertains to you.

This book requires a content warning.* Please see the footnote for the content warning. I recommend reading the footnoted content warning if you are sensitive to reading triggering topics. I won't go into detail right here so those wishing not to be spoiled can enjoy the rest of this review. There are three content warnings listed below. Please skip them if you don't wish to read them! (I'll put them after a cut for those reading directly on my blog home page.)

There are -- I'm not exaggerating -- ELEVEN perspective characters in this book. It's a lot. Most of the critical reviews of this book address this point specifically. 

The perspectives alternate, which is common in novels in the 21st century. Some are in first person, some are in third. And one is -- again, I kid you not -- in second person.

A lot of people struggled with this. I thought it was FANTASTIC, and it is one of the reasons the book bumped from three stars to four stars for me. Because the book was narrated from each of these perspectives individually, it allowed secrets to be revealed slowly. I discovered, as the reader, what each character knew only when somebody else also discovered it, without any one of the characters taking a priority over the others.

There is a character guide at the beginning of the book. I've noticed several reviewers saying this doesn't exist, so it might not have been in previous versions of the novel, but for me there was a guide to the connections between characters, making it easy to follow who was who. I had NO trouble keeping up with how people connected to one another, even without this guide.

(But then again, I am a writer with hundreds [close to a thousand] of characters in my head, so I'm used to this kind of keep-up.)

The book leaves some unanswered questions. It's supposed to be that way, and I'm astonished how many people have questioned this on Goodreads. This is an author trick which leaves a lot to the imagination of the reader. Personally, I love it, but you may not. 

Not to worry -- in the end we DO know how the central character died, and why. It's the details which are left to the imagination of the reader, along with some other factors.

There are graphic depictions of sex in this book. One of the common questions I see asked on Goodreads is "is there sex in this book?" Yes, there is sex in this book. Some of it is fairly graphic. All of the graphic sex I can recall is heterosexual. I mention this because...

There are undertones of homosexual romance in this book. If you're part of the LGBT community, I hope you enjoy the way this flowed as much as I did, because it's subtle and normalized, for the most part. There is ONE slur in the book (a character refers to another character as a "dyke" in a derogatory sense), but it fit with the character and the scene it was in. For the most part, the subtle normalization of homosexual relationships excited me, as a member of the LGBT community myself.

If you prefer NOT to engage with stories including homosexual romance, that is your prerogative, and I want you to know it exists within the context of this story so if you prefer not to read, you can make that decision to avoid rather than complain about its presence after reading the book.

I wound up loving this book. It kept me turning the pages, got my heart racing a few times, and the characters -- though terribly flawed and most of them in one way or another "bad people" -- were sympathetic for me. Others have described these characters as 100% irredeemable, all of them. For me, that wasn't the case. I loved their flaws, loved how real they were, and how far some of them would go to protect one another.

A lot of people are going to feel similarly to my initial reactions to this book, that it's just "okay." I respect that opinion because it's certainly valid and I went to that place initially myself.

This was also the first of Hawkins' books I've read. That's right; I've not read Girl on the Train. I will be reading it though, just as soon as I can get my hands on a copy. Into the Water made me want more by Hawkins. I'd consider that a win!

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase Into the Water from this page, I will receive a small compensation from Amazon.

The Orphan's Tale, by Pam Jenoff | Historical Fiction | World War II Europe | Book Review

Heartbreaking Historical Fiction

This book broke me.

It's been a good few days since I finished reading it, in part because I had to take some personal time once it was finished to come down from the trapeze. 

No, seriously. This book destroyed me. It didn't break me. No. It SHATTERED me. 

Alright, alright. I should tell you, first and foremost, that I love all things circus. This probably sounds ODD coming from someone who hasn't read Water for Elephants (in my Amazon cart right now!) or Night Circus (on my bookshelf!) yet, but the fact remains this book appealed to me because of its circus plot.

That is certainly MUCH of what HELD my interest throughout the experience reading The Orphan's Tale, by Pam Jenoff.

I loved this for two reasons. The first is that the circus created an amazing backdrop for the story and creates the cornerstone for the relationship between the two women, Noa and Astrid. The other is that it is historically relevant to the experience of Jews during occupied Europe during World War II.

This book, therefore, brought me gently back to World War II fiction (something I was needing anyway) by connecting me to it through my love of circus settings. It has been YEARS since I read World War II fiction at all. (And by YEARS I mean I was in middle school at the time.) The Orphan's Tale gave me a reason to pick up historical fiction again. It started a ball rolling I'm grateful to have rolling.

So here's what you need to know before you commit to reading this book.

First, the synopsis is meaningless.

I bought this book based on its circus setting because the synopsis was too weak to gain my interest. The book's inner flap describes this as a novel of two women, at first enemies and then unlikely friends, whose secrets threaten to tear their friendship apart.

That's not what this book is about. In fact, I'd venture so far as to say this synopsis is INACCURATE to describe this book. Not only are the secrets between Noa and Astrid minor in most cases, but they aren't FRIENDS in the sense of most chick-lit.

This REALLY isn't a story about a friendship. It's a story about a circus sheltering Jews during World War II when the Nazis were everywhere.

If you want to read a book which demonstrates how people passively allowed the atrocity of the Holocaust to take place, or if you wish to read a novel which demonstrates how ordinary people did extraordinary things, then this book may excite you. I've not read other books on this topic in a long time, and can make no comparison to popular novels such as The Nightingale, but I can speak to the merits of THIS book.

I loved the relationships between people and their situation more than the relationships between the characters in the book. How they interacted with the circus and with the war is remarkable and fascinating. This is what was most important to me.

You may also want to know this book contains a racial slur referring to a woman of Roma descent. Before you argue that this is simple historical accuracy, you have to understand the reader does NOT encounter a lot of supremacist talk against JEWISH PEOPLE (which would also have been historically accurate).

I believe this is a situation where the author may not be educated on the use of this term, but I would have preferred it to be omitted OR used to the story's advantage.

After all, the Romani people were also targeted during World War II.

Therefore, I also find myself concerned by the missed opportunity on the part of the author. She could have discussed the protection of the Romani woman in this story, or addressed HER fear of the Nazis, but this never came up. 

In my opinion, if a racial slur is used for historical authenticity, it's important it be placed in context, and I didn't feel it was in this story. Whether Jenoff realized "gypsy" is a slur or not is irrelevant. The use of the term felt contextually out of place with the rest of the story, and served as a missed opportunity to address the plight of the Roma people during this period of history.

The book is written in first person present tense from the alternating perspective of Noa and Astrid. This keeps the tension high, as the circus is in constant peril, the characters at risk of being discovered by the Nazis. This is a HUGE plus for me.

I recommend this book, and I hope you love it as much as I did. This is a novel which stayed with me long after I had finished reading it, and I still have dreams of the flying trapeze (which takes up a large portion of the story)! 

Please let me know what you thought of this one!

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase The Orphan's Tale from this page, I will receive a small compensation from Amazon.

Defending Jacob, by William Landay | Legal Thriller | Family Drama | Book Review

Deeply Psychological, Thrilling!

Oh. My. God.

You know, I nearly abandoned this book based purely on the first couple of pages of the book because I disliked the court transcript formatting for those pages. I thought it was difficult to follow and lacked depth (which ought to be obvious). If I'd not pressed on, I'd have missed one of the most entertaining reads I've enjoyed in some time.

Ironically, these first couple of pages, and the way they tie the entire story together and wrap it up in a tidy bow, are precisely the reason this book made it onto my coveted list of five star books. (Alright, alright. Maybe not COVETED. I'm a nobody, after all.)

I realize I'm fangirling, but this book is BRILLIANT. It's  not just the way the author ties one end of the book to the other so skillfully. It's not just the brilliant pacing which rarely ("never" is too strong a word for me) drags. It's not just the fact that every move the author made throughout this novel was so deliberately planned (and, no doubt, well-revised). Amazingly, it's not what this book made me feel.

Oh no. It's what this book DIDN'T make me feel.

Truly and astonishingly perhaps the MOST psychological book I've ever read, brilliantly executed, and outstanding in its construction. 

Oh yes. I loved this book.

But that's not what you REALLY want to know. You want to know if YOU will love this book.

I like to give my readers information about the book -- a warning label, if you will, of things about the book which may not appeal to some readers. When I first started writing, I couldn't think of a single thing I'd want you to know before you invest your time (and potentially your money) in this novel. Fortunately, the more I wrote, the more cognizant I became of some of the flaws in this novel.

So  here's what you need to know before you purchase, or borrow this book.

First, Landay writes in huge blocks of text.

See how short my paragraphs are here on my blog? I try to keep them a length which is easily readable for most people. We tolerance is lower, of course, than print tolerance, but I try to keep my paragraphs at a length readers can easily scan without losing any significant amount of information. A paragraph is generally about five sentences long, often four lines long in text. This paragraph is five sentences long.

Landay's paragraphs sometimes span the length of AN ENTIRE PAGE of text. This makes it more difficult for the reader to scan the paragraph for relevant information, slows down speed readers, and can make even a standard reader (one reading every word at a normal pace) frustrated because its point seems interminable. I consider myself a "standard reader" and Landay's paragraphs slowed me down considerably.

This is never more relevant than at the end of the novel. 

Because following the climax, Landay continues with the story. 

Now if you're like me, you like something after the climax. You're probably not looking for much more story, just something to conclude what you've been reading and to wrap up the book. Some books are terrible about ending immediately after the climax -- what we'd call a "cliffhanger," sometimes without any intention of continuing as a series. So I appreciate the effort. Really, I do.

The problem is the massive paragraphs. They initially felt superfluous, as though they intended only to tell the reader the general sense of what happened after the climactic moment. I asked myself several times, while reading page-long paragraphs, why the author had included this information. (I'm glad I kept reading, because the story actually continued, but suffice it to say this was frustrating, and somewhat tedious.)

I know what you're probably thinking: "Well good! There's something to wrap the story up!" And if you are a die hard for post-climax conclusions, this will definitely be helpful for you.

But this post-climax storyline goes on for several chapters. I'll be the first to admit it's important, and it seems the author had it in mind the entire time, but it's poorly paced. A quick-moving story takes a turn for slow and drawn out. And maybe -- just MAYBE -- this was information I didn't WANT to have.

Not that it destroys the story, because it doesn't. But I'd have been fine with a bit more left to the imagination. (Intriguingly, one of the one-star reviews on Amazon argues that the entire story leaves TOO MUCH to the imagination!)

In another note about the ending, it's similar to the ending of another book I've read. Not that it's predictable, because HOLY MOLY I DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING! But the resemblance struck me as odd and jarring. I didn't like the ending of THAT book, but in this case I felt like it worked. (No, I'm not going to tell you which book, in case you've read it and can then compare notes.)

Finally, I want you to know before committing to read this book that the characters aren't likable. 

I always find myself wondering at the fact this is such a BIG deal for so many reviewers. "I didn't like the characters." Really? Do you like EVERYBODY you come into contact with on a day to day basis? Now granted, even the worst monsters in history have had FRIENDS who loved them in spite of their flaws, but that's beside the point.

Some people just aren't likable, and Andy, Laurie, and Jacob Barber are on the list of unlikable people in the world. (So, as it happens, are Derek Yoo, and Paul Duffy. You're going to despise Ben Rifkin and Neal Loguidice by the time it's done as well (though that is less veiled than the aforementioned characters). 

There's good in each of them. Well, MOST of them, anyway. But I don't think you're supposed to like them. No, not even Andy, the narrative character, Jacob's father. Not even sweet, sympathetic Laurie. While not caricatures, I do believe these characters were made intentionally exactly the way they are. So if you're reading this book, and you pause to think to yourself "something seems to be missing from this characterization," try to consider some people have something missing from their personality and that's just the way the author intended it to be.

Oh yes, I loved this book. LOVED this book. It was amazing! I'm not finding many negative reviews I don't feel missed the point of the novel. I think you'll enjoy it too, if you can live with the aforementioned flaws.

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase Defending Jacob from this page, I will receive a small compensation from Amazon.

With Love from the Inside by Angela Pisel | Family Drama | Legal Thriller | Book Review

A Roller Coaster from Start to Finish! 

This book made me FEEL things.

If you've ever been a mother, or if you've ever had a mother, this book will make you feel things, too. Some of them may be heartrending, others tragic, but this book will make you feel things. 

I loved this book. 

With that said, let me (as I like to do) go over what I feel you need to know about this book before you purchase it. Whenever I can, I like to help readers avoid purchasing books which will provide unexpected or unwanted surprises.

First, while not what I'd call "Christian fiction," the religious aspects of this book were a bit of a smack for me. It might help to note that my to-be-read shelf (the one in my home, as I don't keep one on Goodreads) includes Witch, by Lisa Lister, 78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack, and The Inner Sky, by Steven Forrest.

If you're not at all interested in religious undertones in your fiction, skip this one. While it's not exactly "in your face" it was a bit much FOR ME, and I tend to be pretty diplomatic about these things. (Heavens, I even read Christian fiction from time to time. As long as I know it's Christian fiction, I'm fine with that!)

Second, it's implausible. I'm having a difficult time believing a woman was sentenced to death for the murder of an infant. I probably SHOULD be able to believe it, but I watch true crime shows and read enough true crime novels to find this difficult to swallow. 

Because it is SO CONFUSING whether this novel is set in North or South Carolina, it's difficult to track down the information on death row convictions for the state in which the novel is set (but I think that would be important information. I WAS able to find the site where Pisel appears to have done her research on the female death row.

It strikes me this may have been the only research into females on death row in North Carolina the author did at all, and that astonishes me. The topic should have been more well-researched than that.

The final thing I think you need to know before committing to this book is the editing is odd. I wish, now, that I'd taken better notes with the book as I read it. (I'm terrible at this, by the way.) In one case, the author used an ENTIRELY WRONG word (one which sounded similar, but was NOT a homophone AND had an ENTIRELY different meaning).

Alright, so now you know what you NEED to know before you commit, I'd like to talk about the details, plus my feelings on this book. No worries! I don't include spoilers in my reviews. 

Like the past two books I've reviewed, it was written in alternating perspectives from Sophie (the daughter), and Grace (the mother). Sophie's parts are written in third person, and Grace's in first. 

It is crucial for me to mention this because there are some problems with the perspective I want to bring to light. 

Specifically that Grace's portions alternate between past and present tense and her first-person perspective is in itself a potential spoiler for a novel. If you've ever read a first-person novel from the perspective of someone whose life is in peril (and Grace's is, considering she's on death row for the murder of her infant son), you'll note most of them are written in PRESENT TENSE in order to avoid alerting the reader this character survives to tell the story.

Plus, you'll note my admonition on the editing, above. This is troubling for me as this book was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons (a division of Penguin Publishing) and it seems the editing should have been SUPERIOR. Watch out for this if you're accustomed to reading better edited books!

Some story lines hang out with loose endings. In the case of this book (and I won't spoil which loose ends aren't tied up), I feel like the sub-plots are mostly unnecessary. There are three major sub plots throughout this story. None of them resolve completely. Each of them has some gaping hole which doesn't get filled by the author. The reader is left to simply drop this sub-plot entirely as though it never happened. It's frustrating.

Not only that, but the sub-plots mostly bored me. I found all but one totally uninteresting, and they had little impact on the story as a whole, other than (perhaps) to make Sophie (who is altogether unlikeable as a character) more sympathetic to the reader. At least one of these sub-plots introduces what may be her only positive traits to the reader.

Also, without giving it away, I had suspected the ending purely based on the dust jacket. If you read deeply at all, the ending is wholly predictable.

So why did I love this book so much?

It touched on issues I can understand and relate to. It made me feel things I hadn't felt in a long time. It brought emotions I had refused to feel to the surface and forced me to deal with those feelings in a healthy manner.

I loved it because it made me not only cry, but WEEP. I loved it because of the emotional tone and quality of this book, and because of how deeply it touched me. I loved this book. I did. 

I think a lot of others will love this book as well, if they can tolerate the negatives and overlook those for the good in the novel. I hope you'll give it a try!

What did you think of With Love from the Inside, by Angela Pisel?

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase a book through this page, I will receive a small commission from Amazon.

Revising My Book Review Rating System

Star ratings. Some people love them and some people hate them. 

Personally, I love star ratings. They give me a quick at-a-glance of whether a book is something I'm likely to enjoy. I trust most reviewers to leave an accurate rating, and therefore generally assume that any book with 4+ stars on Amazon or 3.5+ stars on Goodreads will probably fit the bill for me.

And some people don't like them, for good reason. It's difficult to assess whether or not you're going to like a book based on somebody else's rating criteria. Not everyone rates based on the same set of factors, and if one person tends to rate high and another to rate low, it can be difficult to determine which books will suit your reading tastes.

Clearly the best reviewers write thoughtful reviews of the book, regardless of the use of stars or other marks to determine its worth.

But I like star ratings, and I'll continue to use them.

It only occurred to me this morning, as I prepared myself for a day of reading in the hopes of finishing my most recent book, that I realized there is no consistency in the way that I rate books.

Previously, my rating system went something like this:

Everything starts off at 3 stars. If I enjoyed the book, it bumps up to 5 stars. If I didn't enjoy the book, it bumps down to 1 star. If I enjoyed the book but there are errors in the writing, it loses stars from there, so a book I enjoyed could wind up being rated 3 stars, but never 2 (because 2 clearly states I didn't enjoy the book). A book I didn't enjoy can earn stars back with beautiful prose (but rarely accomplishes this) to become either a 2 or a 3 star book. 

Wow. Confusing much? And absolutely no consistency! What does 3 stars really mean in this case?

I'll tell you: It means nothing. In the past when I rated a book 3 stars, it literally meant that I couldn't come up with a balanced expression of how I felt about this book. It meant nothing.

So as of this morning, I've revised my star rating system. 

This new system should make it easier for readers to decide whether a book is something that they will enjoy, if they are familiar with my reviews and trust my judgment. It will also tell authors in no uncertain terms what my experience was with their book.

Alright, are you ready?

★☆☆☆☆

Did not finish. Period.

This is a book which, for whatever reason, I simply could not finish. Regardless of the quality of the writing, regardless of the popularity of the book, regardless of my feelings about other books by this author, I didn't finish this book.

By default, this means that books like Revival by Stephen King would receive a 1-star rating, in spite of the fact that I love Stephen King.

A 1-Star rating means nothing at all about the author, and has everything to do with my enjoyment of and my ability to finish the book. That's all.

No book I finished will ever be given 1 star (from this point forward).

★★☆☆☆

I finished this, but I didn't enjoy it at all.

This is in no way a reflection of the writing. The writing could have been amazing, but I didn't like the book enough to give it even three stars. 

Most likely this means one of the following:

I forced myself through this book in the hopes of a good ending that it did not deliver. 

The book bored me but I promised to finish it as it is an ARC. 

I found either the characters of the story uncompelling, but it wasn't bad enough to DNF. 

I have never, in all the years that I've been reviewing books, been prone to rating a book 2 stars. It's a nothing rating and it means very little. Few people read 2 star reviews because they want to know what people really hated about a book or what they really loved about it. 

It's unlikely that there will be many books on this blog (or my Goodreads of Amazon) that get 2 stars.

★★★☆☆

This book was okay, but it was just "okay." 

If you take a look at rating guidelines on review sites like Amazon or Goodreads, you'll see that this is the default setting for a 3-star review. It's an okay book, not great, not horrible, just sort of "meh."

(Alright, so maybe that's my word for it.)

Generally speaking, my 3-star book reviews will be for books that I finished and liked well enough, but that didn't compel me to read them quickly or with enthusiasm.

I'm just not enthusiastic about these books. They didn't impress me as particularly great and they didn't impress me as particularly terribly. A 3-star book took me longer than average to read, and I probably struggled a bit to make it all the way through.

All in all this is not a book that I would highly recommend, but I think that some people might enjoy it if our literary tastes are similar.

★★★★☆

This is a book that I definitely liked and think that my followers are going to like too. 

In general, 4-star books are books which I was able to read through quickly (average 4-7 days) and which I enjoyed spending time with. I probably looked forward to getting time to read these books, but didn't carve out special reading time just to read these books.

I'd definitely recommend a 4-star book, but it didn't absolutely blow me away the way that a 5-star book did.

These are books that I might read again at some point in the future.

If you have similar tastes to mine and you enjoy my reviews, you probably ought to do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of the books that I've rated 4-stars. Do the author a favor too, and purchase these if you can. They're worth it.

★★★★★

This book, without a doubt, blew me away. 

I'll read it again some time in the future. I might even read it annually. It's even possible that I'll read this book again in the same year. And review it again on my blog. It was that good!

5-star books aren't just highly recommended, they are must read books. These are the books that you ought to go out to the book store immediately and purchase. They are the books that make me want to drag the author onto my blog for an interview. The books that make me want to drop a copy off at every Little Free Library I can find.

They are the books that make the world go round. The ones that I can't put down. The books that I read in less than 48 hours (and I'm not a quick reader here!). 

Some years -- some months -- there might be a lot of 5-star books. Some years -- some months -- there might be almost none.

But these are the books that deserve a thousand exclamation marks that will never seem excessive. They are the books you have to read! Over and over again! Every year! They are the books you want to give away! They are the books you want other people to read! 

You see where I'm going with this? 

These are rare gems, finds that I'll treasure for all of my life. 

And I vow not to take the 5-star rating lightly.

Please feel free to leave any questions for me in the comments, and I will be happy to help you with understanding how my rating system works. Thank you!