The Woman in Cabin 10

Author: Ruth Ware
Genre: Suspense
Type: Trade Paperback
Pages: 352
Source: Local Public Library
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
First Published: January 3, 2017
First Line: "The first inkling that something was wrong was waking in darkness to find the cat pawing at my face."

Book Description from GoodReads: In this tightly wound story, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong…

With surprising twists and a setting that proves as uncomfortably claustrophobic as it is eerily beautiful, Ruth Ware offers up another taut and intense read.

My Rating: 3 stars

My Review: I jumped into The Woman in Cabin 10 with only a vague knowledge of Ruth Ware's first mega-hit book, In a Dark, Dark Wood. This book started off strong with quite a suspenseful, fast-paced beginning but as the book progressed it took on a strange quality due to the twist and finished a little lackluster.

What I liked: 

• the venue that confines the possible suspects to a smaller area - it had a very Agatha Christie vibe and reminded me of the CLUE board game but with a nautical, posh theme.  "It was Professor Plum in the Spa with the cuticle brush!"
• The nail-biting, suspenseful beginning was a good start and this pace continued until halfway through when my interest started to waver and the plot got a little weird.
• cool, creepy textured cover 

What I struggled with: 

• The further into the book I got the more I had to suspend reality and plausibility - especially when it came to the big twist (which happened too early in the book)
• Then there's Lo - dear me! Add another unreliable narrator to the pile! Lo is a silly, whiny main character and not the sharpest knife in the drawer but she wins hands down as the most intoxicated! For a journalist, she wasn't professional - she interviewed no one, networked with no one and took no notes. I had had enough of her early on especially after the 'mascara scene' which was odd at best (who does that?! Ew!). I couldn't believe that she didn't see the twist, especially for a person whose job is to notice things. I was not a fan of Lo.
• I liked that a solid reason is given for Lo's anxiety but her constant preoccupation with the safety of a woman she met for all of 1 minute seemed over-the-top ridiculous
• The scenes towards the end of the book felt tacked on and could have been summed up much faster.

Overall, this is just an okay read. I liked the tension in some scenes and the smaller setting that keeps the characters in one spot but the twist and Lo herself made me lower my rating.