Review - 'The Woman in Cabin 10' by Ruth Ware

I'm a little conflicted after reading The Woman in Cabin 10. On the one hand, it's a decently interesting mystery. On the other hand, did the main character have to be such a dimwitted lush?

Lo is a travel writer, and she's thrilled to be invited on a small luxury cruise as part of her job. But her fun soon comes to an end when she witnesses what seems to be a woman being pushed overboard. The problem is that no passenger is missing, so her alarm is met with mostly indifference. If she wants to find out what happened, she'll have to do it herself.

Sounds promising, right? Except Lo is the most annoying character I've come across in a long time. Throughout the story, she is incredibly tired from lack of sleep (we're told this like 50 times), perpetually verging on drunkenness, hungry (she hardly eats), unfriendly, argumentative, defensive, and just plain dumb. She doesn't seem to know simple things about the cruise even though she's there to cover it as part of her job. Whenever she sees anyone, she freezes up and doesn't know what to say.

And we're supposed to believe that not only is she a journalist with 10 years of experience, but that she can also solve a mystery, mainly by blundering around, poking into and blurting out things she shouldn't, and drinking like a fish whenever there is alcohol around? Nope, not possible. My disbeliefs can only be suspended so far, I tell you.

What baffles me is that the main character didn't have to be written this way. It doesn't advance the plot or play into some idiot-person narrative. The mystery would have been just as good, if not better, had Lo been sharp and shrewd.

Thankfully, in the last third of the book, Lo finally starts using her wits (hurray!), and the pacing picks up. The mystery unfolds, and becomes fun and twisty. And when the solution is presented, it's an interesting one. It's just too bad the enjoyment wasn't even all the way through and we had to wait until the end to get the main character this story deserves.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars