The Girl on the Train in #Pages4Progress Summer Reading Challenge

Dec 20, 2015 Jodez rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pop-sugar-challenge-2015

The Girl on the Train Parts of this book hit a little too close to home, which made it difficult to get through without panic attacks of my own, but I'm very glad I did.

Sometimes I didn't know whether to feel sorry for Rachel, unable to conceive the child she so desired, she became depressed, losing her home, her husband, and eventually her job in the process. But she was also a pathological liar, lying to herself, to her landlord and friend, her mother, the police, and to entwine herself wi ...more

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Mar 11, 2015 beautywithbooks rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, suspense, thriller, books-i-own

Trilling, compulsive and gripping. The story revolves around three women. Rachel, Anna and Megan.
Rachel, an alcoholic depressed soul, after her break up with her husband Tom. Anna, the young woman whom Tom choose over Rachel. Megan, who always cheated and ran away from her life rather then facing them. Whom will you trust or like. None of them are perfect. All in a complete mess.

Rachel lost her husband and job too. But still catches the 8.04 slow train from Ashbury to Euston pretending to go to ...more

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May 07, 2015 Rebecca added it · review of another edition

Could not put it down

The book starts out with a girl riding a train and reporting her sittings out the window and just like a train pulling out of the station this book picked up the pCe and kept me turning until the end

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Aug 13, 2015 Kirstie Ellen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, thriller

The Girl on the Train

Was the Hype Worth it?
Look, I don’t know if the hype is 100% accounted for, but this is certainly a good and enjoyable book. There’s mystery, there’s awkward (super cringer-worthy) stuff-ups made by our protagonist, there’s non-existent love stories and there’s even a squeeze of action; all in all it’s a pretty good thriller/mystery.

We follow the journey of Rachel, an unemployed, divorced alcoholic who plays a significant role in the main events of this story. Or so she thin The Girl on the Train

Was the Hype Worth it?
Look, I don’t know if the hype is 100% accounted for, but this is certainly a good and enjoyable book. There’s mystery, there’s awkward (super cringer-worthy) stuff-ups made by our protagonist, there’s non-existent love stories and there’s even a squeeze of action; all in all it’s a pretty good thriller/mystery.

We follow the journey of Rachel, an unemployed, divorced alcoholic who plays a significant role in the main events of this story. Or so she thinks. Every day she catches the same train to and from work and every day she gazes out the window and at a particular stop she sees the same couple doing the same daily routine. Having an over-active imagination she creates a story for them, imagining what their jobs are, how much they love each other, and what hobbies they do in their spare time. And then the train moves on. Seems like an innocent enough plot, right?

This book is so much more than what you’re expecting it to be. I’m not going to spoil anything by explaining anymore of the plot to spoiler-y people because this is a book best read without any prior knowledge – the shock is better that way. In short, 80% of this book and the storyline was not what I anticipated it to be. I highly recommend giving it a go if you like the sound of it (it won’t disappoint) and if you like mysteries and guessing games then there’s plenty of that, too.

(view spoiler)[But now, onto the interesting stuff. I spent a lot of this book not liking the main character, Rachel. I didn’t like how uncommitted she was to righting her situation – she had no respect for the kindness of her flatmate and was embarrassing when drunk. She was overweight (unusual for a book character, I know) and aware of her down-in-the-dumps appearance, yet continued drinking. Quite frankly, she disgusted me. Yet, this is how I feel Hawking wanted us to feel about Rachel; we know how she is now but you can’t help feeling that if she could get out of this drunkenness, she’d be a great person. Of course, as the story unfolds I found myself liking her more and more – especially once you know the reason for her semi-depression is her inability to have a baby. I really liked how the main suspense of this book came from Rachel's inability to remember what happened that night and neither her nor the reader being able to say with certainty that she didn't have anything to do with the murder of Megan . . .

I thought it was sad that no-one would take her seriously and how alone she really was. She couldn’t go to the police, because even though she was there the night of Megan’s murder she can’t remember and Anna, Tom’s new wife, has painted a bad picture of Rachel .So now she just sounds like a crazy person (as I saw her to begin with but gradually was teaming up with her more and more). Anna is a total bitch in the beginning and I really didn’t like her attitude towards life with her attraction to being the “other woman”. Also, I feel like her character had the potential at the end to redeem itself and for her to become a nice person, but I wasn’t sure this actually happened.

I was very interested in slowly learning more about Megan and Scott as the story progressed also. I felt I had the same fascination with them as Rachel did which made me feel on tender hooks with the whole, did Scott do it? Didn’t he? The story was like a teasing pendulum of suspense the whole way through in regards to the “true” identities of the characters. Literally to the point where I did the whole: maybe Rachel is a bad guy? Pfft, nah . . . but then again. . . My head was doing itself in trying to work it out. Fair to say I was shocked when I first realised the murderer was Tom (and what a dick at that). I was actually really proud that I worked this out before we’re actually privy to him bashing in Megan’s skull (yikes!), usually I entirely miss these clues. There were certainly very interesting dynamics between the characters of Rachel and Anna during that final scene at the house with Tom.

Of course, the whole unravelling of who everyone was and where everyone ended up was very nice closure. And touché to Hawking for that final line, “I’ve got a train to catch” (or something similar), it was like the perfect full circle. And hooray! Rachel is back on track with life; I was very happy. I was glad that Scott didn’t do it, that seemed far too obvious. That being said, I was glad (this sounds terrible) that we find out the details with the little domestic violence scene at the end – because there were too many hints towards him being somewhat unstable for there to not have been something that happened. This book is kinda perfect in the way that everything turned out. (hide spoiler)]

Summary
4/5 stars for this book: I really enjoyed it despite it not being the genre I usually delve into. The plot was really sound, for me, and I enjoyed the intense mystery of who dunnit?! It was certainly better than I expected it to be and worth the several month wait that I endured to get my hands on a library copy of it. So yes, I would recommend this book to you because if you’ve read this far down my review (which, in all fairness, isn’t that far for those who didn’t read the spoiler) then I think you will enjoy this book. This has certainly got me more interested in reading more books like this, that’s for sure. Whilst there may be no dragons, there is certainly enough tension to make up for it. My approval has been granted.

Happy reading!
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Jul 20, 2015 Tomi added it · review of another edition

Be cautious what you look at on a train

This is a gripping book with many twists and turns to keep you hooked until the end. The author did a great job of developing the characters.

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Mar 17, 2015 P Stangfield rated it it was amazing

A "can't put down" book. ...more

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Jun 12, 2015 Satrina T rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, read-and-watched, 2015-read-harder-challenge, 2015, mystery

I had a very slow start since I seem to be on a reading slump again but I ended up liking it pretty much.

In the beginning I thought Rachel, being the main character, was going to be the perfect girl so it was a nice surprise finding out she was a flawed person.

Favorite character: I think Kamal.

Least favorite character: Anna, hands down I just couldn't stand her.

Read as part of Book Riot's 2015 Read Harder Challenge Task 23. A book published this year. ...more

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