The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train

by Paula Hawkins

The #1 New York Times Bestseller, USA Today Book of the Year, now a major motion picture starring Emily Blunt.
 
The debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives, from the author of Into the Water and A Slow Fire Burning.
 
“Nothing is more addicting than The Girl on the Train.”—Vanity Fair

“The Girl on the Train has more fun with unreliable narration than any chiller since Gone Girl. . . . [It] is liable to draw a large, bedazzled readership.”—The New York Times
 
“Marries movie noir with novelistic trickery. . . hang on tight. You'll be surprised by what horrors lurk around the bend.”—USA Today
 
“Like its train, the story blasts through the stagnation of these lives in suburban London and the reader cannot help but turn pages.”—The Boston Globe

“Gone Girl fans will devour this psychological thriller.”—People 

EVERY DAY THE SAME
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She's even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life--as she sees it--is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

UNTIL TODAY
And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Reviewed by Leah on

3 of 5 stars

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Psychological thrillers have been all the rage during 2014 and there are three in particular that stick in my mind - Gone Girl (which wasn't released this year, but I read it this year), Keep You Friends Close and The Accident. All three I thought were superb books (although the ending of Gone Girl left a LOT to be desired) that really held the genre in good stead. So when The Girl On The Train was announced, it was announced with a lot of fanfare. Better than Gone Girl. The best psychological thriller you're ever likely to read etc etc, and I was duly excited.

I didn't quite know what to expect from The Girl On The Train, except for y'know a girl on a train. What we get is three different narratives. One from Rachel, who's cuckoo-crazy and probably an alcoholic, one from Anna the new wife to Rachel's ex Tom with their perfect baby girl, and one from Megan, who ends up going missing. All the narratives are in the "now" apart from Megan's which starts a year prior and works up to the time she goes missing. And it was interesting to put together the pieces and see how the puzzle came together.

I wasn't as taken with The Girl On The Train as I expected, but for what it's worth it's a fairly decent thriller. I certainly kept reading, but I was never quite sure about any of the characters because they were all liars. It was so hard to take Rachel seriously when what was coming out of her mouth was lies, lies, lies. It was like she insinuated herself in to Megan's disappearance because she had absolutely nothing better to do, having been sacked from her job. And while she might have initially had something to add to Megan's disappearance, I found that she just became a nuisance in the end, and I was irritated with her trying to solve a cash she had nothing to do with.

The payoff with any psychological thriller is the ending. It's the only thing I really get excited for, because it's usually where the author trips you up and reveals the bad guy was someone you didn't suspect at all, ever. But, with The Girl On The Train, I figured out who had done it fairly early on. It wasn't a massive secret, although I will say that I enjoyed seeing Rachel piece it all together. Sure, she was an absolute hot mess who had no right to be in the investigation, but having stuck it out with her the whole novel, it was gratifying to see her get it, eventually. It was an interesting read, I was never fully invested in any of the characters because, like I said, they were all big fat liars and I hated that. But I'm glad I read it, because it was interesting. Not edge of the seat stuff, but interesting enough.{Leah Loves} http://leah-loves.com http://leah-loves.com/books-girl-train-paula-hawkins/

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  • Started reading
  • 17 December, 2014: Finished reading
  • 17 December, 2014: Reviewed