Beckford is a town with a memory problem. Or maybe it just remembers too much of the wrong things. When Paula Hawkins released her second major thriller, the expectations were almost unfairly high. The Girl on the Train had been such a massive, culture-shifting juggernaut that everyone expected her next move to be a carbon copy. It wasn't. Into the Water a novel Paula Hawkins wrote to deliberately mess with your head, is a much murkier, more claustrophobic experience than its predecessor. It’s less about a single "girl" and more about an entire town’s collective history of violence against women.
It's been a few years since it hit the shelves, but the debate hasn't cooled down. People either love the complexity or they get totally lost in the weeds of the eleven different narrators. Honestly, it’s a lot to keep track of. But if you’ve ever sat by a river and felt that slight shiver—that "someone walked over my grave" feeling—you get what Hawkins was trying to do here.
The Drowning Pool and the Weight of History
The story kicks off with the death of Nel Abbott. She’s found in the "Drowning Pool," a specific stretch of the river in Beckford that has a nasty habit of claiming the lives of "troublesome" women. Some call it suicide. Her sister, Jules, isn't buying it. Jules has to return to the town she tried to erase from her mind to care for Nel’s teenage daughter, Lena.
What makes Into the Water a novel Paula Hawkins fans often cite as her most atmospheric work is the way the water functions as a character. It isn't just a setting. It’s a repository. The book digs into the 17th-century witch trials where women were "swum" in the river. If they floated, they were witches and executed. If they sank, they were innocent—but dead. This historical echoes-of-violence theme is heavy. It’s not just about one murder in the present day; it’s about a cycle that refuses to break.
The river is described as a "place to get rid of troublesome women," and that line sticks with you. It’s dark. It’s cynical. It’s classic Hawkins.
Why the Eleven Narrators Actually Matter
If you look at Goodreads reviews, the biggest complaint is usually the sheer number of perspectives. Eleven voices. It’s a lot. You’ve got the grieving sister, the rebellious daughter, the local cops, the town psychic (who is sketchy as hell), and even voices from the past.
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Why do this? Why not just stick to Jules?
Because Beckford is a character, and towns don't have one voice. They have rumors. They have secrets kept in different houses. By jumping between characters like Josh Irvine, a boy grieving his own mother’s drowning, or Sean Townsend, the detective whose own family is tangled in the river’s history, Hawkins forces the reader to act like a detective. You aren't just being told a story; you’re sifting through unreliable gossip.
Some voices are definitely more compelling than others. Lena, the daughter, is particularly sharp. She’s angry, grieving, and carries a level of teenage cynicism that feels incredibly real. She knows the adults in her life are lying to her, and she’s not wrong. Then you have Jules, whose memory of her childhood is fractured. This is a recurring theme in Hawkins' work—how trauma literally rewires the way we remember things.
The Problem With Memory
Jules and Nel didn't get along. Jules remembers Nel as a bully. Nel reaches out before her death, and Jules ignores her. The guilt is a physical weight in the prose. But as the book progresses, we realize Jules’s memories might be skewed. This is where the "unreliable narrator" trope gets a workout. In The Girl on the Train, the unreliability came from blackouts and booze. In Into the Water a novel Paula Hawkins explores how we choose to remember things to protect ourselves from the truth.
It’s uncomfortable. It’s meant to be.
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Sorting Through the Beckford Secrets
To understand the mystery, you have to look at the Venn diagram of the town's tragedies. You have:
- Libby Seeton: A woman from the past whose death set the tone for the Drowning Pool’s legend.
- Katie Whittaker: A teenager who died recently, whose death is linked to Nel’s obsession with the river.
- Nel Abbott: The woman who was writing a book about the others before she ended up in the water herself.
The connection between Katie and Nel is the engine of the plot. Was Katie’s death a suicide? Did Nel know too much? The local police, specifically DS Erin Morgan, are trying to navigate a town that clearly doesn't want the truth coming out. Morgan is an outsider, which is a necessary perspective because everyone else in Beckford is too compromised by their own history to see clearly.
The Backlash: Was it Too Much?
Let’s be real for a second. When this book came out, the critics were split. Some called it a "sophomore slump." They felt the shifting perspectives were a gimmick. But if you revisit it now, away from the hype of 2017, the structure feels more like a mosaic.
It isn't a fast-paced thriller in the traditional sense. It’s a "slow burn" that borders on "glacial" in the middle sections. If you're looking for a page-turner that you can finish in two hours, this isn't it. It’s a book that demands you pay attention to names and dates. It’s a literary mystery disguised as a psychological thriller.
The prose is denser than her first book. Hawkins spends a lot of time on the scenery—the green light under the water, the way the mud feels, the sound of the current. It’s evocative, but it can be exhausting if you just want to know "who did it."
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A Different Kind of Villain
Without spoiling the specific "whodunnit" ending for those who haven't finished, the real villain in Into the Water a novel Paula Hawkins created is the patriarchy. Yeah, that sounds like a college essay topic, but it’s true. The book is an indictment of how men in power—teachers, fathers, police officers—use and discard women.
The "Drowning Pool" is a metaphor for what happens when women speak up or act "troublesome" in a small, closed-minded community. The resolution of the mystery isn't just about finding a killer; it's about seeing how many people were complicit in the silence. It’s a bleak ending. Don't expect a neat bow.
How to Read This Without Getting Confused
If you’re picking this up for the first time, or giving it a second chance, here’s the best way to handle it. Don't try to memorize every name in the first fifty pages. Focus on Jules and Lena. They are the emotional core. The other characters will start to click into place as their secrets intersect with the Abbott family.
Think of it as a television series like Broadchurch or The Killing. In those shows, you meet dozens of townspeople who all seem guilty. That’s the vibe here. Also, pay attention to the excerpts of Nel’s book. They provide the historical context that explains why the town is so obsessed with the river in the first place.
Final Verdict on the Legacy of the Book
Is it as good as The Girl on the Train? That depends on what you want. If you want a tight, focused perspective, then no. But if you want something more ambitious, more atmospheric, and significantly darker, then Into the Water a novel Paula Hawkins delivers. It shows a writer trying to expand her range rather than playing it safe.
The book forces us to confront how we treat "difficult" women and how easily we let the past repeat itself. It’s a ghost story without actual ghosts—just the memories of people who were never given justice.
Next Steps for Readers:
- Check the Family Trees: If you’re struggling with the narrators, keep a quick note of who belongs to the Whittaker, Townsend, and Abbott families. It clears up 90% of the confusion.
- Compare the Themes: Read Hawkins' third book, A Slow Fire Burning. You’ll see a pattern in how she uses physical locations—a canal boat, a river—to trap her characters in their own pasts.
- Audiobook Hack: Many readers find the audiobook version of Into the Water much easier to follow because different actors play the different narrators, making the voices distinct and easier to track.
- Explore the History: Look into the real history of the "ducking stools" and witch trials in the UK. Hawkins based the Beckford lore on actual historical practices that took place in various parts of Europe.
- Watch the Development: Keep an eye out for news regarding the film adaptation. DreamWorks acquired the rights early on, and seeing how they condense eleven narrators into a two-hour movie will be a masterclass in screenwriting adaptation.