The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins


                I hate falling into books with a lot of hype. It can be such a bitter disappointment after hearing great reviews if I don’t like the book. I didn’t have this problem at all with The Girl on the Train even though halfway through the book I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it. This novel is told in alternating narratives between our lead characters. Rachel Wilson is a lonely alcoholic who gazes out of the window of the train as she heads into work every day and has fixated her imagination on what she believes to be the perfect couple. When the woman in the perfect couple, Megan, goes missing she is convinced that she has information that could help solve the case. But between her alcoholic stupor and her extreme insecurity she ends up being largely ignored. What are you supposed to do in that situation when someone’s life may be on the line? Well, in Rachel’s case she starts acting irrationally and makes things worse before they get better.
                Well, I sped through this novel. I was so fascinated by the mystery behind Megan’s disappearance that I couldn’t stop reading. These characters were so wonderfully developed and so horribly flawed that it was easy to believe the worst in them. Trying to get through the layers of the story to understand what was going on, both before the disappearance and after, is what makes this novel and Hawkins writing very good. The readers are led to believe the absolute worst in these characters because of how things are playing but nothing is at seems. The moment I figured everything out, all the floating puzzle pieces fell into place and everything made sense.           

                Hawkins created this suspense novel knowing that the main characters would undergo a lot of scrutiny. These characters are the people you wouldn’t want to have anywhere near your life. I can’t even name a character that I liked in the story. I’m mentioning that because she could have easily lost me and all of my interest if this hadn’t have been a really strong story. I get frustrated with characters that are stuck on making bad decisions and let me just say that this story if full of them. But here it serves a purpose. We are forced to view them at their worst and still try to understand them. It’s not that easy honestly. I did however really enjoy this book and Paula Hawkins style. I give this novel 4 out of 5 stars.  

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