Helpful Score: 13
Laura "Lo" Blacklock is a writer for Velocity, a travel magazine. Due to her superior being sick, she gets the chance of her career when she gets to go on a cruise on the luxury private cruise ship, the Aurora. Days before she is to set sail she her apartment gets burgled while she is at home. As an almost lifelong sufferer of anxiety this has really thrown her off her game and she is pretty much a wreck. She boards the ship with a total of like 6 hours sleep for the last week, but she knows she has to wine and dine and make contacts.
That night as she get to her cabin, severely sleep deprived and drunk she passes out on her bed. A few hours later she is awoke by a noise that she thinks was a woman's scream, and then the sound on the balcony door opening in the cabin next to her, cabin 10, then a giant splash. She runs out on to her own balcony and thinks she may see something in the water, but she is certain she sees smeared blood on the plastic guard fence at cabin 10. She calls to have it investigated but when the security officer arrives the blood is gone and the room is empty. She knows it wasn't empty because she talked to the girl staying in that room and saw all her stuff all over the room. Now it is completely cleared out. Because of her pills, her sleep deprivation and her intoxication she is not the most reliable witness. Lo knows what she saw though and she is going to get to the bottom of this and find out what happened to the woman in cabin 10.
It seems that people either love this book, or hate it. I think the biggest problem some people are having with the book is the character of Lo. She is a completely unreliable narrator, definitely not bold enough to ever be a reporter, and very prone to anxiety and panic attacks. I liked that she was an unreliable narrator. It made the book more twisted because you don't know what is actually happening or what is in her head. I also thought that there was no way this woman could be a reporter. She was a nervous wreck, relatively timid, and awkward. Grated she worked for a travel magazine, but I still don't buy it. As for the anxiety and panic attacks, I found them completely believable and very demonstrative to how people treat you when they find out you have any sort of mental disorder. It is easier to write it off as crazy, than deal with an almost unsolvable problem.
Another thing I really liked about this book was it emulated And Then There Were None wear it is a small group of people, isolated, without any way to contact the outside world. You just can't go wrong emulating The Dame. The author builds the suspense very slowly and as a reader a lot of it is confusing. I believe it is meant to make you feel this way because the narrator feels this way. Then the suspense get more and more psychological, you don't know who to trust and what to believe. It was a great ride. The ending fizzled a little, but not enough to make it a let done.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a suspenseful, psychological story. The pacing is slow in the beginning but it picks up and becomes a book you cannot put down.
That night as she get to her cabin, severely sleep deprived and drunk she passes out on her bed. A few hours later she is awoke by a noise that she thinks was a woman's scream, and then the sound on the balcony door opening in the cabin next to her, cabin 10, then a giant splash. She runs out on to her own balcony and thinks she may see something in the water, but she is certain she sees smeared blood on the plastic guard fence at cabin 10. She calls to have it investigated but when the security officer arrives the blood is gone and the room is empty. She knows it wasn't empty because she talked to the girl staying in that room and saw all her stuff all over the room. Now it is completely cleared out. Because of her pills, her sleep deprivation and her intoxication she is not the most reliable witness. Lo knows what she saw though and she is going to get to the bottom of this and find out what happened to the woman in cabin 10.
It seems that people either love this book, or hate it. I think the biggest problem some people are having with the book is the character of Lo. She is a completely unreliable narrator, definitely not bold enough to ever be a reporter, and very prone to anxiety and panic attacks. I liked that she was an unreliable narrator. It made the book more twisted because you don't know what is actually happening or what is in her head. I also thought that there was no way this woman could be a reporter. She was a nervous wreck, relatively timid, and awkward. Grated she worked for a travel magazine, but I still don't buy it. As for the anxiety and panic attacks, I found them completely believable and very demonstrative to how people treat you when they find out you have any sort of mental disorder. It is easier to write it off as crazy, than deal with an almost unsolvable problem.
Another thing I really liked about this book was it emulated And Then There Were None wear it is a small group of people, isolated, without any way to contact the outside world. You just can't go wrong emulating The Dame. The author builds the suspense very slowly and as a reader a lot of it is confusing. I believe it is meant to make you feel this way because the narrator feels this way. Then the suspense get more and more psychological, you don't know who to trust and what to believe. It was a great ride. The ending fizzled a little, but not enough to make it a let done.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a suspenseful, psychological story. The pacing is slow in the beginning but it picks up and becomes a book you cannot put down.
Helpful Score: 3
I was so excited to start this book. It sounded just like the kind of exciting mystery I could sink my teeth into but it was disappointing. Started out OK and I'm trying to see clues for what is coming ahead and then the further I get into the story it just falls apart - rather lame. If you liked "Girl on a Train" you might like this. I did not like either of these books for the same reason; they both started out good then went downhill.
