Review: The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Because of all the hype, I expected this book to blow me away. It didn’t, but I did like it a lot.
There is a murder, and I don’t know if I was supposed to figure out so quickly who did it but even knowing (or thinking I knew) didn’t diminish my enjoyment.

Rachel – who is “The Girl on the Train” – is the primary narrator and she is a total mess. She’s an alcoholic who lost her husband and job and is about to lose the place where she’s currently living. She also tends to lose memories when she drinks. This becomes an even bigger problem when Megan is murdered. Rachel thinks she might have witnessed something that could help solve the crime, but the memories she does have come back very slowly.

The murdered woman – Megan – is one of the other narrators. The other – Anna – is Rachel’s ex-husband’s current wife and Megan’s neighbor. All three of them are unreliable, by the way.

While Rachel rides the train from suburbia to London every morning she passes by the backs of the house where she used to live with her husband, where he still lives with Anna and their baby: as well as the home of Megan and her husband, Scott. Because Rachel doesn’t actually know Megan and Scott she makes up names – and Jess and Jason – and stories for them, making them the perfect couple. Later, through Megan’s telling of her story, and through Rachel’s new “friendship” with Scott, we learn that isn’t even close to being true.

Anna’s story is basically talking about how Rachel seems to be stalking her and Tom (the husband) and their baby, Evie. She also talks about Rachel’s drinking and how she has let herself go since she and Tom got married. Several times, when she thinks Rachel may be trying to get Tom back, she says something along the lines of “Why would he go back to that when he has this?”

As I said, I figured out fairly early in the story who killed Megan, but there are several fun and twisting twists on the way to the conclusion.

Although it’s not what I expected but it’s a good rainy weekend read, and actually a very good character study about alcoholics and the effects they have on just about everyone around them.


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