Book reviews by Mobilism's Book Review team
Jun 12th, 2015, 1:42 am
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TITLE: The Girl on the Train
AUTHOR: Paula Hawkins
GENRE: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
PUBLISHED: January 13, 2015
RATING: ★★★ 1/2
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon
MOBILISM LINK: N/A

Description: A debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives.

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?

A compulsively readable, emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller that draws comparisons to Gone Girl, The Silent Wife, or Before I Go to Sleep, this is an electrifying debut embraced by readers across markets and categories.

Review: Billed as this year's Gone Girl, this book is a decent but comparable read to a lot of other books in the mystery/thriller genre. Not sure how this novel got the huge hype (or for that matter, how Gone Girl got it either); I guess both authors must have stellar marketing teams. Don't get me wrong, it kept me reading, but when I sat down to write this review, I realized I had forgotten most of the plot (I read it a few months ago) and I had to re-read it. Even while re-reading, I forgot the details of the ending until I read the last few chapters again. I gave Gone Girl 4 stars while this one earned 3.5, partly because Gone Girl offers a better quality of writing, not necessarily because the story is not compelling. There was another major problem with The Girl on the Train, but I'll get to that in my review.

Rachel is a sad, lonely woman. She was married to Tom for 7 years, they bought a house together, right next to the train tracks. They couldn't conceive a child, and Rachel started drinking and deteriorated quickly into a blackout drunk. Tom cheated on her (she blames her drinking for this), and now he, his new wife, Anna, and their new baby still live in that same house. This doesn't stop her from lurking in the neighborhood and drunk-dialing her ex-husband on lonely nights. Shortly after Tom marries his new wife, Rachel loses her job because of her drinking, but rather than tell her long-suffering friend and roommate that she lost her job, she just spends her savings and rides the train back and forth to London every day and pretends to be at work.
“I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s not just that I’ve put on weight, or that my face is puffy from the drinking and the lack of sleep; it’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move.”

"Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches."

Meantime, she is still drinking, alone, she really has no friends at all, apart from her roommate, Cathy, who appears to be the only person left who cares about her. Everyone we meet in the story (except for Cathy, who only suffers from bad taste in boyfriends) is a hot mess. I mean, if I knew nothing about London, I'd be afraid to go there, assuming every British soul was as twisted at these people.

Anyway, Rachel's daily train often stops at the same spot to let other trains pass at a signal crossing, and this spot happens to overlook the block where she used to live with Tom. She can't see her old home, but she can see into a house several doors down from her old house. Watching them twice a day, 5 days a week, she concocts a whole fantasy life about these people, who they are, their occupations, the state of their marriage, what she assumes from in those brief snapshots of their lives, she calls them "Jess" and "Jason".
“And they are a partnership. I can see it, I know how they are. His strength, that protectiveness he radiates, it doesn’t mean she’s weak. She’s strong in other ways; she makes intellectual leaps that leave him openmouthed in admiration. She can cut to the nub of a problem, dissect and analyse it in the time it takes other people to say good morning. At parties, he often holds her hand, even though they’ve been together years. They respect each other, they don’t put each other down.”

Oh, how I would laugh at this part of plot, thinking there is no one on earth pathetic enough to assume they know all about someone from merely looking in their window from 50 yards away for 5 minutes a day, but I have found out firsthand, the entire internet is full of armchair judges and juries. As we know, there are a lot of lonely, sad people out there and yes, they tend to focus on and obsess about other people's lives and business to make up for their own lives being not so exciting. I think that generally when we are happy, satisfied, and busy with our own lives, the less attention we pay to others and the less we judge and obsess over the minutiae of other's people's lives and life decisions. That certainly seems to be true here: it was quite sad watching Rachel drinking, alone, her only enjoyment pretending she "knows" these strangers (who, as it turns out, she doesn't know at all).
“If I sit in carriage D, which I usually do, and the train stops at this signal, which it almost always does, I have a perfect view into my favourite trackside house: number fifteen.”

So, one day Rachel sees something at this house, happening to "her couple" - and the next day, the media is reporting the woman she thinks of as "Jess" (actually named Megan) is missing, and the man she thinks of as "Jason" (actually named Scott) is a suspect. In typical lonely girl fashion, she inserts herself into every aspect of the investigation, as much as possible. Even though she herself is actually a person of interest (she was in the neighborhood wandering around that night mooning over Tom, she was stinking drunk, remembers nothing, and came home with an injury), she can't stop herself from poking her nose into the investigation. She calls and visits the police as much as possible, she visits Megan's therapist as a patient, she contacts Megan's husband, she stalks the neighborhood. Again, she does it in the guise of "helping" but really it's just to add excitement to her own lonely life. It's all quite sad.
“In no time at all, I find myself crying again. It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. Someone who looks at you, who doesn't know you, who tells you it’s OK, whatever you did, whatever you've done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. I confide in him and I forget, once again, what I'm doing here. I don't watch his face for a reaction, I don’t study his eyes for some sign of guilt or suspicion. I let him comfort me.” (-Rachel, visiting the police investigator)

Unfortunately, the police find Megan's body and her death is confirmed. Of course, the investigation heats up, and although the police discount Rachel as an "unreliable witness," Rachel continues to wildly suspect nearly everyone she comes across; then in the next scene, it's someone else entirely. Again, pretty typical for her erratic, unstable personality type. Since I did sympathize with and understand Rachel as a character, finding her completely believable, what is my issue with The Girl on the Train? Well, I can't tell you without sharing too many plot spoilers. It has to do with the ending, and the identity of the killer. I will leave you with this quote from Rachel, discussing what led to the end of her marriage...
“The thing about being barren is that you're not allowed to get away from it. Not when you're in your thirties. My friends were having children, friends of friends were having children, pregnancy and birth and first birthday parties were everywhere. I was asked about it all the time. My mother, our friends, colleagues at work. When was it going to be my turn? At some point our childlessness became an acceptable topic of Sunday-lunch conversation, not just between Tom and me, but more generally. What we were trying, what we should be doing, do you really think you should be having a second glass of wine? I was still young, there was still plenty of time, but failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under, and I gave up hope. At the time, I resented the fact that it was always seen as my fault, that I was the one letting the side down. But as the speed with which he managed to impregnate Anna demonstrates, there was never any problem with Tom’s virility. I was wrong to suggest that we should share the blame; it was all down to me. Lara, my best friend since university, had two children in two years: a boy first and then a girl. I didn’t like them. I didn’t want to hear anything about them. I didn’t want to be near them. Lara stopped speaking to me after a while. There was a girl at work who told me—casually, as though she were talking about an appendectomy or a wisdom-tooth extraction—that she’d recently had an abortion, a medical one, and it was so much less traumatic than the surgical one she’d had when she was at university. I couldn’t speak to her after that, I could barely look at her. Things became awkward in the office; people noticed. Tom didn’t feel the way I did. It wasn’t his failure, for starters, and in any case, he didn’t need a child like I did. He wanted to be a dad, he really did—I’m sure he daydreamed about kicking a football around in the garden with his son, or carrying his daughter on his shoulders in the park. But he thought our lives could be great without children, too. “We’re happy,” he used to say to me. “Why can’t we just go on being happy?” He became frustrated with me. He never understood that it’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to mourn for it.”

I do recommend The Girl on the Train for all lovers of mystery/thrillers, I am torn between a 3.5 and a 4, but decided to downgrade it that half star because of its last chapter.
Jun 12th, 2015, 1:42 am
Sep 20th, 2015, 8:06 pm
I started listening to the audio book for this but I just couldn't get into it.. Maybe I need to just read it
Sep 20th, 2015, 8:06 pm
Mar 14th, 2016, 1:59 am
I, too, enjoyed this book. Like mmmhmmmm, I found it slow to start. I think the author does a good job developing the lead character and found myself caring about her enough to keep reading.
Mar 14th, 2016, 1:59 am
Mar 20th, 2016, 4:23 pm
I liked that Rachel was a drunk and not a typical goody two shoes main character but that is actually the only thing I liked about this book. The plot seemed a bit far-fetched and I suspected the killer from early on as there was at least one not-so-subtle clue. I really don't understand how this got soooo hyped.
Mar 20th, 2016, 4:23 pm
Apr 7th, 2016, 6:12 am
I keep hearing good things about this book. In just hesitant to read it.
Apr 7th, 2016, 6:12 am
Jul 1st, 2016, 6:58 pm
Jenkins1997 wrote:I keep hearing good things about this book. In just hesitant to read it.


Even though I share the exact same feelings as the review like it being nothing too extraordinary and boring at times I still had a good time with it.
Jul 1st, 2016, 6:58 pm
Jul 23rd, 2016, 5:16 am
I found it slow to get going but stuck with it and glad I did its different but a good read.
Jul 23rd, 2016, 5:16 am