The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ch. 1-3

First book is going to be The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware.

I've read it before, but it's one that I enjoyed a lot. I loaned it to a co-worker recently and she loved it too. But she also talked about a couple of things that I couldn't recall happening, so I thought this would be a good candidate for the start of this.

Also, fair warning, this is never going to be a spoiler free blog. I'm talking about the book as I read it, so there will be spoilers as I go.

First line of the book:

"In my dream, the girl was drifting, far, far below the crashing waves and the cries of the gulls in the cold, sunless depths of the North Sea."

Lots of people say that the first line of a book sets the tone, and that's probably true but they don't tend to stick out or at least stick in my memory. I mean one exception is 'The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault.' from The Dresden Files but that involves magic and flying monkeys that fling fiery poo so...

Anyway.

We'll see if the first line suits the rest of the book.

There's a bit of a prologue? Maybe? Is one italicized page a prologue? IDK. Anyway.

Romantic description of a rotting dead body floating around in the ocean that turns out to be the dream referenced in the first line and then our POV wakes up to find that someone has broken(? - I mean I'm assuming here) into their room and written 'STOP DIGGING' on the bathroom mirror.

And then the book starts.

Chapter One starts by date stamping us - September 19.

We start with waking up and knowing that something is Not Right. I think that's something we all know, right? Maybe not the waking up, but we all have a very good sense of our space, of our territory and if someone has been in our shit we know it. I know I annoyed the shit out of family for years by knowing any time they came in and touched my books. Because it's my territory and I know when you've been at it, don't lie.

Something's off, the cat (Delilah) is in the bedroom and she should not be but maybe just drinks based forgetfulness? There's an instinct here that is telling the protagonist that Shit is Happening but she's hung over and sleepy and she's not sure so she rationalizes it all away and in spite of the fact that the Cat is Not Where She Should Be and the Bedroom Door is Magically Closed, she decides that this is all fine.

It is not, in fact, all fine.

"But when I opened the bedroom door, there was a man standing there."

Which is 100% terrifying - never mind that he's covered head to toe and wearing latex gloves - you open up a door in your house or turn the corner and someone who should not be there is there - or hell, you're just not expecting them to be there even if they're harmless and they belong, is wet your pants surprise territory.

But this dude does not belong.

He and Protag stare for a few minutes, and she wants to do a lot of stuff but us frozen in fear and then, when she realizes he has her purse which has her cell phone - a common problem now that didn't used to exist - we all rely so much on cellphones. And he comes towards her. There's a second where you think, and so does she, that maybe he's going to assault her - rape and murder is a real big and rational fear - but thankfully all he does is slam the door in her face.

The cat has peaced out into the rest of the apartment and with Protag trying to hold the door shut in case the guy should circle back around she can hear him trashing her apartment.

It's only when she can hear Delilah purring outside the bedroom door that she gets up the nerve to try and see if he's left - only to discover he's broken the door handle off? Or maybe just removed it somehow - this is set in Britain somewhere and maybe doors are different there? I'd think you'd hear the guy hammering off the other side of the door handle and would the inside bit stay on? I have not tested this to find out.

Two hours later, Protag has managed to McGuyver her way out of her locked bedroom - because it's an underground apartment there's no damn window without a security bar set up and here we run into my theory that rooms do not belong under ground. They are creepy and extra dangerous and unnecessary. That just seems like a damn fire hazard, to be honest.

Anyway.

Delilah is fine (thank you, no unnecessary animal deaths in my murders please) and Protag scoots her way over to the neighbor who, once awoken because this is all happening in the ass crack of the morning, gets her some tea (checks to ask if he...'hurt' Protag) and then gets her a phone to call the police.

We don't call British 911 because it's no longer an emergency since the guy is gone? Not sure if that's the right way to go, but I know I damn well would be calling 911 at least in part because it's the only number that would come to mind!

There's a good deal of men thinking that the poor little lady victim is just helpless and being condescending to her here. I mean maybe the locksmith means well, but he keeps asking if she can remember things to tell her husband to get fixed - hint, she's not married and she can remember a couple of numbers, thanks - and then once she tells him she's not married there's a reaction like, 'HUH. That makes sense then.' As if, had there been a man about, she would not have been robbed.

And THEN the weasely little officer who comes to take her statement just bangs away at her door like she hasn't just been traumatized in her own home and when she drops her tea cup makes a comment about whether or not there's a second robbery going on! I know that dark/gallows humor is a thing, but there's also being aware and considerate of the victim who cut herself getting out of her room and also has a cut on her face from being assaulted during the robbery - the door caught her in the face when he slammed it shut.

We find out that Protag's name is Lo and that she works for a travel magazine. A travel magazine she forgot to tell she wouldn't be in because of the robbery. There's bits about the big break assignment she's going on for this new luxury private ship (which might be important, given the title of the book) and there's some hints about how much this story is going to do for Lo's career.

She also, in these pages, decides to not mention the robbery to her boyfriend Judah - she just emails him to tell him that she lost her phone. He is currently out of town for work.

I'm sure this won't backfire on anyone at all.

There's hints that Lo might have some anxiety - not just from the attack but an anxiety disorder and maybe some claustrophobia given her stressing between closing the bathroom door to feel secure and her not wanting to feel trapped in a small space. There was also mention, earlier, of her medicine having been in the purse that the robber took but no exact prescription or diagnosis is given.

This is important because when Lo tries to get some sleep, she's unable to and turns to alcohol in an attempt to self medicate into something like rest. She drinks what seem like some pretty damn stiff gin and tonics and passes out - until Delilah wakes her up two hours later.

Tick through Saturday and Lo trying to get some prep done for the trip and then we're at Saturday night and sleep is not a thing that is happening. She decides that the best thing to do - no, she's not drinking again which is probably a good choice - is to randomly wander about the city in the middle of the night.

Seems legit.

"I should have felt afraid - a thirty-two-year-old woman, clearly wearing pajamas, wandering the streets in the small hours. But I felt safer out here than I did in my flat. Out here, someone would hear you cry."

Listen, this woman is so freaked out that she is wandering the streets of London in her pajamas in the RAIN. Rain that she didn't even notice until she was soaked through. This is a problem. There is some rough stuff going on in her brain right now and she does not have a safe space to just feel safe and not lose her shit even though she is trying damn hard to hold it together.

She is trusting random strangers in the middle of the night in a big city to keep her safer than she feels in her own home.

Girl.

Lo winds up in Judah's empty apartment, in his empty bed. She has stripped off her wet clothes in a rose petal like trail to the bedroom because she is just DONE and finally manages to get some sleep. Sleep that ends with screaming and someone on top of Lo and she brains them with a lamp.

Turns out 'someone' is Judah who came home to a trail of manky wet pjs and his girlfriend naked and screaming bloody murder in his bed. He tried to wake her up and well. It goes poorly for him.

One hospital trip later and he's got his lip stitched up, probably a decent shiner, and the hopes that the tooth the emergency dentist jammed back into his jaw will take root again.

Lo has to explain the whole thing, which maybe she could have just mentioned in an email or with the cell phone that she picked up in the mean time so he didn't just try to wake her the fuck up!

Okay, okay, I know, Lo is traumatized and she's just holding on to normal with her fingertips here but poor Judah had no idea because I feel like he would not have just hopped into the bed and then tried to grab her when she started having her nightmare if he'd had a clue.

So many things could be solved if people just talked and did what I told them to do.

Little bit of 'Hey, welcome home, sorry I brained you with your own lamp!' sex and then there's some tiny relationship drama where we find out that Jude (Judah's nick name) has asked Lo to move in with him before and he has actually turned down a job in America (he's American) to stay in the UK with Lo but that Lo keeps telling him she needs more time.

And this might, MIGHT, be putting a strain on their relationship.

And that's the end of the first three chapters. Mostly set up, giving us some info on Lo and what's going on with her in her 'normal' setting. It seems like we might also be getting some hints that Lo is not 'typical' so we'll see if that comes back into play later.

So far no murders!

Hopefully I'll be earlier in the day next week for the next three chapters. I'm sort of coming in under the wire with this one, but I made it and that's all that matters!