readTeddytalk: Book Review: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Published: January 13, 2015

Publisher: Riverhead Books

Author: Paula Hawkins

Pages: 336
Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Suspence

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. 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.

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 offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Rachel had her life perfect and planned out five years ago. She had a nice house, a husband, but now lives in the duplex of an old friend from university and has a serious drinking problem.

The story is told form 3 different POVs - of Rachel, Megan and Anna. It is also divided in little sections by the time of day - for example - Morning, Early afternoon, Evening.

If you have every known someone who has/had a drinking problem or was a drug addict you would know it's really not easy for them to stop. They cannot just decide that today is the last drink they'll have. It doesn't work that way. That being said, I've read a handful of books where the character goes through a stressful couple of days and suddenly stops their bad habit.

This book really portraits the struggles realistically. The "I'll stop drinking, but not today. Tomorrow." And tomorrow becomes next week, next month, next year and eventually never happens.

"And then I went from being a drinker to being a drunk and there's nothing more boring than that."

Rachel realises her situation and know what she's doing, She's not pretending it's not going on and affecting the people around her. She is hungover most of the time, doesn't remember crucial information. Her life is a mess. She has nothing figured out and the alcohol keeps her going.

She pretends to go to work every day even though she has been fired. (hence "the girl on the train")

The story is told in short, precise sentences. The writing style got me to read the book so fast, as it was really simple. The plot is centred around a gone girl which I didn't expect since I though it was going to be more dark and creepy. I went into this book with my eyes closed and suffered the consequences.

"Life is not a paragraph and death is no parenthesis."

The relationships between the characters didn't feel particularly candid to me. They weren't well developed although you could see the effort that Paula Hawkins applied.

The problem for me with these kinds of books is that things just don't add up smoothly at the end - you can feel the holes in the story. I'm not saying this ending is bad, it wasn't anything exceptional.

The hype surrounding this is UN-BE-LIVE-ABLE. I heard so many people say that it was their favourite book ever. I just didn't find the story gripping enough, although I did enjoy it.

For a debut novel I want to congratulate Paula Hawkins for the success and for what she has done because books like this are not easy to write.

I recommend this book to lovers of mystery. I would have liked a little more closure at the end, but hey, you can't have everything.