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?
I see a lot of comparisons to Gone Girl in the reviews here. I guess it's superficially like Gone Girl, in the sense that if you like psychological thrillers filled with flawed people that you won't like but will find interesting, you will probably like this one. The narrators are unreliable, but unlike Gone Girl, no one is purposefully trying to lead the reader astray.
The most interesting part of the book to me was the primary narrator's insertion of herself into the mystery. Rachel is an alcoholic - she is narcissistic, has a very loose grasp on problem solving skills, and (probably her #1 defining trait) she has really, really terrible boundaries. She has next to nothing to do with the murder victim, but she forcibly inserts herself into the investigation by talking to the police and hounding the victim's husband. Instead of simply reporting the one piece of information she has, she twists the situation around to make it all about herself.
In most amateur sleuth novels, the main character is welcomed into the investigation, or at least not treated with the side-eye a random civilian would be given in real life. However, Rachel's attempts to join the fray are treated with derision and hostility. She is being incredibility inappropriate, and everyone tells her so, but her narcissism continually leads to her elevating her own self importance in the case. She does eventually solve the mystery, but she's a train wreck, not a hero.
Ultimately, this is an impressive debut. I'm excited to see what Hawkins does in the future, and I'm always thrilled to add another woman to my list of "awesome mystery/thriller authors."
Reading updates
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Started reading
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12 March, 2016:
Finished reading
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12 March, 2016:
Reviewed