I can only give Into the Water a lukewarm review. I actually liked quite a few things about this book, but the whole is not greater than the sum of parts here. The stage is set well in a town called Blackwater. It feels ominous and full of secrets. The flashback stories are good and reminded me how much I like stories about the Salem Witch Trials (The Witch of Blackbird Pond comes to mind...) There are numerous points of view to deal with and usually that doesn't bother me. That being said, the story dragged on for so long that it took me FOREVER to finish this book and thus made me forget who was who. Kind of a bummer to have to look back and figure out who characters are. 
 Character development was spotty and I couldn't tell if Paula Hawkins was using that as a way to tell here story with mystery or if she was actually having a hard time weaving everything together. Lena was an interesting character and even though she was hard to like I actually did like her. Her Aunt Jules' story seemed unbelievable, but not in a good way. I wish we would have gotten more about Nel, but I really don't think that would be possible b/c the author made her so secretive that I don't think she had much of story to tell. Louise and Katie's story with conjunction with Mr. Henderson made sense but ended on an anti-climatic road. 
 Really anti-climatic kind of sums up this whole book. This author had a good idea, but this seemed like a writers workshop edition that needed to be cleaned up.