The Blue Hour: A GMA Book Club Pick

I'm maybe in the minority for not loving The Girl on the Train. I thought it was okay, better than the unrelenting flood of "GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER" that has come our way since, well Girl on the Train, plus "Gone Girl", "Woman in the Window"...etc. I was surprised when I started out LOVING this one.The beginning of "The Blue Hour" is SO promising. A famous, and dead, female artist's sculpture may, shockingly, contain, not a deer bone, but a human one. Can this be tied to her long-vanished ex-husband? There's a great and sympathetic male character in Becker, basically her curator. There's lots of art talk. There's a mystery in why she left her estate to her nemesis. There's even a desolate and windswept island where she created much of her work. The writing begins in a luminous and lyrical way - a really good read for several chapters. This is fun!Unfortunately, and this is all too common in this genre, apparently whilst men are generally either predators or a bit milquetoast, the complicated women who are set up as main characters are ... not good people. They are unstable, needy, delusional, often unattractive (apparently a cardinal sin in Hawkins's universe), but if attractive they are mean and manipulative - it's like a catalogue of misogyny, and it's not worthy of any author, let alone a woman.I really disliked the last third and particularly the ending of this book. It's pretty predictable in terms of whodunit, and also very dark and depressing. If you have no need of a happy ending, and don't mind being inside the head of extremely disturbed people, perhaps you'll feel different. I would give the first half of the book 4-5 stars and the last half 1 star (kinda wild I know), and, in general, I think your time is better spent on - depending what you're seeking - a total beach romp (take your pick) or something wrenching AND meaningful, like "Old God's Time".

Wow…this was one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. It started slow for me and I was worried I was reading an article critic book. Then, couldn’t put it down. This was a great book.

I really enjoyed it all along, but wanted a little more positive ending. There were too many unexplained missing people and deaths for there not to have been a serious investigation.

My friend loved it. Couldn’t put it down!

So well written, so well plotted, so many threads running through these lives and then they all build to a startling unexpected crescendo. Gobbled this one up like eating potato chips… Could not stop could not put it down!

Circumstance or opportunity as Grace goes through her life caring about others and self preservation. Vanessa with her talent, money, lovers is a great protagonist. Twists and turns throughout the plot.

I cant say much without spoiling something so - it is a murder mystery, period. I cant totally buy into the characters' reality.

An island that people cannot get to or off of unless the tide is out. A reclusive artist and her companion who is a doctor make a life together on this island until things start going wrong for them and for others whose lives they touch. This book is mysteriously captivating. I am not sure what held me to the pages, but I felt compelled to keep reading, to find out the truth about Vanessa’s art and Grace’s secrets. The surprises and twists are numerous and this novel is filled with imagery and ghosts. Good book, but be prepared to be haunted by it and the characters who occupy its pages.DisclaimerI checked out a copy of this book from the public library using the Libby App. I was not required to write a positive review.

It stunk. The artist is not a very nice person who sleeps with whoever. Like all the characters in the book she is a bundle of contradictions that make her literally unbelievable. She is strong yet falls apart over her X husband. The killer has Borderline Personality disorder, a type that is rarely murderous, but here she is killing people. She is also contradictory in an unbelievable way. Becker is the chips that carries the salsa. He is there as a vehicle for the story which is disjointed and not very good. Sadly he becomes toast. And it does not matter what you "leave behind", it matters what you did when you were here. Sorry but nothing is "left behind" except kids maybe. We love this notion of something being left when we are gone. I don't hold with it. The book was a torture. I hated how Grace kept oversharing and then had to kill the person she shared with. I dreaded reading it every night but hung on to see the ending and then the ending sucked. All around a very poor piece of work unless the judge of a book is how much it annoys the reader. By the way, maybe the now its blue repeated means there was an ambulance coming. I say this because Marguerite seems to look out the window a lot and noticed when Grace went out with Nick and came back alone. Why write in Marguerite and her ever watching presence if she is not playing a role?

I was disappointed with the book. I didn’t care for the characters and there was no apparent crime to care about until about 1/3 remaining in the book. I wouldn’t gave finished if it wasn’t for the fact it was a book club selection. The end did get good however.

Started out great but then proceeded to be very boring. I skimmed so many pages of "troubled thoughts" that I didnt even care about who did what. Very overrated book - not worth your time or money!

I just finished this book a few minutes ago. Paula Hawkins really has quite a way of telling a story. This is a real slow burn, this one. With that being said, there are almost no likeable characters, and be warned--no happy ending. This book is very much about what makes a person go crazy. I would give a better review, for a better ending.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I got hooked and it was a fast read. The language is beautiful and the story is very compelling.Was going to give it four stars, but ended up giving it three because of the ending. The book had so much buildup and the ending felt sudden And unsatisfying.

I'd have never guessed the ending until the last 10 pages. Interesting characters and story line. No likeable characters! But the island and the people make you keep reading

After reading and reading, the book ends. Leaves you wondering, did he live? Did he see his baby? Did the murderer get caught for all the “Kills” that were “accidents”? Was the baby really his? We are left to form our own ending or endings. Where is Eris Island? A good read.

I loved the setting of the island. I did not care for any of the characters. Everyone was either sad or unlikable or both. I would like to have had at least one character that had some happiness or hope of happiness. The book did keep my interest to the end, though. The end was not what I expected. Not sure why some people found it confusing. I found it pretty easy to follow. Overall, interesting enough.

Good but not great. I have mixed feelings here. The characters and lives were extremely well put together which is a challenge that Hawkins is so masterful at. You sense their pains and joys and you feel like you’re in the skin of Becker and Grace, two of the main members of the cast. I think that the whole book ended much too abruptly and we readers definitely were left wanting more and were hoping to learn more of the characters’ fates. I’m sorry - this was a book with so much potential but it fell short. I would definitely recommend to my friends “Into the water” which I think is Hawkins’ best work, but I would not recommend this one to them.

A slow book to get into, and the ending was clearly visible half way through. However, well written descriptions of life on a beautiful island, the day to day changes in its surroundings. Plot and character developments were not as good as ‘A Slow Fire Burning’, another Paula Hawkins I absolutely enjoyed reading. Oh well, …

Vanessa Chapman’s art has mesmerized curator Becker for years, so his job cataloguing her artistic estate is a dream job, not work at all. One of his missions is to have Chapman’s longtime friend Grace give him the entirety of the artist’s work, notebooks, and letters that remain at the house on the isolated tidal island of Eris. As he breaks down Grace’s reserves, he also breaks into the secrets she’s kept for years.Alternating extracts from the artist’s journals with scenes from the younger days of both women’s lives, a chilling history soon emerges. Tautly plotted, with an unerring sense of place that adds to the darkness.

Welcome to Eris: an island with only one house, one inhabitant, one way out. Unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day.Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago.Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge….A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, The Blue Hour recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Hawkins’s place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.My Thoughts:As we follow the characters in The Blue Hour, we are captivated by the mysterious events that suggest a very dark set of circumstances in the past and the present.An artist, her carer and friend, and a man named Becker who is searching for answers keep the reader off guard throughout.What will happen to Becker as he begins to realize just what took place and who is responsible for much of what occurred to our characters?I was gripped by the events and couldn’t stop turning the pages The book earned 4.5 stars for me.***