what I’m reading: the woman in cabin 10 by ruth ware.

Laura (Lo) Blacklock is a travel journalist who is given the opportunity to cover the maiden voyage of the Aurora, a small but gorgeous luxury cruise ship consisting of only 10 cabins. On her first night aboard, Lo hears a scream from the cabin next door and a splash and sees what she thinks is a body sinking under the water. But when security comes to investigate, the cabin next door is empty and no guests have been registered to stay there. This is odd because earlier that night Lo borrowed some mascara from a woman who answered the door at cabin 10. If no one was scheduled to be in the cabin and all of the guests and crew are accounted for, who was the woman that Lo saw in cabin 10, and was she the person that Lo saw go overboard?

This book has been sitting on my bookshelves for a couple of years. When I was looking for something to read, it seemed to jump out at me as if now was the time to read it.

This is another book where the heroine witnesses a murder but no one believes her. Lo suffers from anxiety and takes medication. A couple of days prior to getting on the Aurora her apartment was broken into with her present, which has just seemed to exacerbate Lo’s anxiety. She hasn’t been sleeping well, she had a fight with her boyfriend, and she’s been drinking to combat her anxiety which all leads to Lo being an unreliable narrator and everyone questioning what she thinks she saw.

The first part of this book is super slow. There are multiple chapters about the break-in and how Lo is coping and I could not figure out how this fit into the story. I was just waiting for her to get on board the boat. Unfortunately, once she is on the boat, we are introduced to pretty much all the characters all at once, which was a bit challenging. I had trouble keeping track of all the characters and had to make a list of who everyone was.

I found Lo to be frustrating and a bit whiny. It seemed like she suffered from every ailment – she had a headache, she was overly tired, she couldn’t sleep, she had low blood sugar, she had a hangover, she was seasick, she was claustrophobic. I thought she was so unlikeable and she had to tell everyone everything. I mean, you’re on a boat with a killer. Would you really run around and tell everyone you saw what happened?

What I liked about this book was that it is a locked-room mystery. The characters are on a boat traveling around the Norwegian fjords. There is no connection to the outside world as the phone and internet services are down. Since no one can get on or off the boat, the murderer has to be on board. The tension is high here since everyone is a suspect.

I will say that I did not guess the reveal and I found myself flipping the pages back and forth, looking for clues. I do think there were some plot holes and I still have some unanswered questions.

I have mixed feelings about this one. It was good but I didn’t think it was great.

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