Book Chatter

Into the Water
By Paula Hawkins
Riverhead Books, 9780735211209, May 2017, 400pp.

The Short of It:

Highly anticipated but not for me.

The Rest of It:

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. ~ Indiebound

You may recall the popularity of this author’s previous work, The Girl on the Train. That book wasn’t perfect but it was a page-turner and it kept me reading. With Into the Water, I really had to push myself to read it.

My thoughts:

In case you didn’t know, it’s about witches. Kind of.
Too much back and forth.
The characters. I had no interest in them.
Marketed as psychological suspense. No, it’s not.
Took a really long time to figure out what was going on.

I’m sure it’s very difficult to top a best seller like The Girl on the Train but this story was a bit underdeveloped. I didn’t mind the numerous points of view or even the format of the novel itself but it just didn’t grab me like her other book did.

Plus, I am not a fan of stories about witches and there was nothing about this book that mentioned witches. It alluded to secrecy and scandal and there was some of that but not enough for me to enjoy it.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Sunday Matters

You know how much I hate the commercial aspect of Christmas. I really hate it. I would much rather DO things than get things. Of course, it’s hard to get away from it entirely but this year I am trying to focus a little more on the doing, and less on the buying/getting.

Right Now:

My son quit one of this jobs to spend more time with the family before he heads to Orlando in January so I am spending a little time with my calendar today trying to fit some fun things in. We have some things scheduled but he still has the one job to consider and that schedule is not posted far enough ahead, in my opinion, for us to really plan things out the right way but we will try.

Tonight is the high school ministry party. Should be fun!

Later this month we are going to a special holiday lighting event called The Enchanted Forest of Light. Click that link for a video. We go on 12/23 and we are all looking forward to it.

This year, we are also picking up where we left off by taking our two special friends to look at Christmas lights. Due to crazy schedules, we could not do it last year so we are happy to be able to do it again this year.

This Week:

My last day of work before the break is Thursday the 14th so I am beginning my countdown today!

My daughter has practices and rehearsals and her choir party this week. We also have a Christmas party to attend on Saturday.

We all got new phones on Cyber Monday since ours were falling apart. My poor daughter couldn’t even make or receive calls or texts. We all went with Google Pixels. I got the XL. It’s been fun listening to audio books right from my phone and not having to download them first to my iPod. I know, right? I was really roughing it. I expect to up my game this week with audio books so I can possibly make my reading goal this year.

Reading:

I am still reading The Visitors by Catherine Burns. It’s a little odd.

I finished The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin for book club and it was lovely. I plan to post my review sometime this week.

Next up, Manhattan Beach.

Watching:

The Walking Dead finale is tonight. It better be good. The teaser I saw looked pretty tense but it could also be a big hot mess depending on how they handle it.

As for Christmas movies we’ve seen Christmas with the Kranks and Christmas Vacation will probably be the next one up. I like to watch that one more than once during the holidays.

Making:

I will be making an apricot glazed ham with baked beans for the party I am going to. We haven’t had tacos in a while so maybe I’ll make those one night.

Grateful for:

Great books, happy people, people who have a knack for just listening and being there for you, great food lovingly prepared, candlelit dinners, all the people who make me laugh. Thank you.

Chatting with friends about books and life…