Monday, August 31, 2015

The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins
Riverhead Books, 2015. 323 pgs. Fiction

Rachel takes the same train into London each morning, and as she stares out the window she looks forward to seeing "Jason and Jess" - a couple whose actual names she doesn't know, but who she frequently sees breakfasting on their deck.  She has begun to daydream about the ideal lives they must lead, until one day when she sees something shocking.  Unable to let the matter rest, Rachel tells the police what she knows, and unwittingly embroils herself into a chilling mystery.

Part character study and part murder mystery, this has been frequently compared to Gone Girl for its dark tone and thrilling pace. Though it starts slow, readers will want to stick with it to see how it all ends.

BHG

1 comment:

ACS said...

For the most part this felt slower paced than Gone Girl to me, but I still enjoyed it. Sometimes we get so caught up in our fantasies and limited perception of situations that we lose track of reality, which is what happens to Rachel. Similar to Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train has an unreliable narrator which adds an extra dimension to the story. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not, when Rachel is actually being treated as unfairly as she perceives, or when something else is going on that we don’t have all the details to. This is a novel that’s easy for me to recommend.