The Girl on the Train
Author: Paula Hawkins
Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Hyped-to-the-Skies
Grade: B
So I wasn’t going to jump on the hype train for this one but it does fulfill a square for the reading challenge I’m doing. (More than one female protagonist is what I’m using it for.) Judging from the number of reviews on places like Amazon and Goodreads I might the the last person in the world to have read this book.
Rachel has what she believes is relevant information to a disappearance/ possible murder involving a couple she spies on while taking the train into the city every day. Unfortunately for her and the police she has all kinds of other problems. A tendency to drink, to overreact, to cause trouble and as the missing woman, Meghan, lived only a couple of doors down from Rachel’s ex-husband and his new wife and child she isn’t considered the most trustworthy source in the neighborhood.
I thought… that this didn’t really live up to the hype but it certainly didn’t crash and burn. All the characters were generally dreadful but they were so in what I felt was a believable way. You felt bad for Rachel and you wanted to shake her and you may know people like her who cannot let the past go. Meghan was the hardest to like. She’s hiding secrets upon secrets. I liked Anna apparently more than most (she’s an unrepentant mistress/happy new wife) but I admit that could be because Rebecca Ferguson is going to play her in the movie.
My biggest problem though is it’s not to hard to figure out what was going on and who the baddie was and once you do you can kind of see the end coming. I admit there was a couple of minutes reading the end where I thought it might go one way but there were no surprises.
So for the characterization of the three female characters I really liked this book. They were messy, unlikeable, and all too human. For the mystery part it was pretty much what you think it’s going to be.
Recommend: Sure. It’s a quick painless read and I’ll definitely check out the movie when it opens.
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