The Girl on the Train in The Perks Of Being A Book Addict

Apr 07, 2015 Colleen Scidmore rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: drama, contemporary-fiction, mystery, favorite-reads, 5-star-reads, books-read-in-2016, favorites

OMG this book is soo good! My son had read it and kept telling me to read it, but I put up resistance because we don't always have the same taste in books. But I'm so glad I finally gave in.

It's about a woman named Rachel who has a very sad life, she lost her husband, Tom to another woman because of her drinking. Her drinking was sooo bad she would have blackouts and not remember a thing to find out she had either verbally or physically abused her husband the day before. The drinking started to OMG this book is soo good! My son had read it and kept telling me to read it, but I put up resistance because we don't always have the same taste in books. But I'm so glad I finally gave in.

It's about a woman named Rachel who has a very sad life, she lost her husband, Tom to another woman because of her drinking. Her drinking was sooo bad she would have blackouts and not remember a thing to find out she had either verbally or physically abused her husband the day before. The drinking started to get bad when she found out that she could not get pregnant, she wanted so desperately to have a baby with Tom she lost her way. That was two years ago. Present day, her drinking is just as bad as ever, she won't stop contacting her ex who has a new wife, Anna and a baby girl living in their old home. She has lost her job because of the drinking and gets on the train everyday to pretend to go to work so not to upset her roommate Cathy who took pity on her and took her in. This poor woman is a mess. It sounds like she went from a determined beautiful woman to a weak drunken slob who just gave up on life.

Everyday on this train she passes by her old neighborhood, she sees her old house but she's also been noticing a young handsome couples house on the same street for the past year. She lives vicariously through them and just enjoys seeing their daily activities and how in love they seem to be. She also imagines what occupations they do or what they like to do for fun, it helps her not deal with her own life focusing on them. She doesn't know their real names so she calls them Jess and Jason. One day as she's passing their house on the train she notices Jess is out on her patio and she is not with her husband but another man and they look much too intimate to just be friends. So her image of the perfect couple is now shattered.

The next day is Saturday and Rachel is very drunk and decides to get on the train and try to speak with her ex Tom, so she gets off at Witney and that's when things get fuzzy. She wakes up at her house with a couple of cuts and bruises and can't remember a thing except for talking with a orange haired man. Soon after she finds out Jess, really Megan Hipwell has gone missing that night.
She puts herself in the investigation trying to help Jason, really named Scott because she feels the police are looking at him and after all the tender moments she saw between him and Megan she is positive there is no way he could do something to her, and besides there was a lover who the police and Scott need to know about.

Rachel goes through many battles with herself and others to try to do the right thing to help Scott and also giving sobriety a try, with some fails, to get her life back. She's also starting to remember some details about that night and thinks she may have the key to what happened.
There are so many twists to this book, you honestly don't know what exactly happened and who was involved until the end, and there are so many suspects.

I loved this book, there was so much intrigue and mystery and raw emotion and so hard to put down. I give it a big thumbs up! And if you are reading this review and have not read the book yet I suggest you go pick it up, you will not be disappointed! ...more

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Jan 27, 2015 Michelle rated it it was ok

Shelves: reviewed, mystery, 2015, choice-awards-2015

Man, I hated these characters. The only characters I hated more were the ones in Gone Girl. What a frustrating story!

Rachel. She's a mess. She is a mess, and needs serious therapy. She is a liar, and an alcoholic, and a terrible, terrible roommate. I. Do. Not. Like. Her. Everything bad that happens to her is basically her fault. When the main character is so awful I have a hard time caring what might happen to them.

And the other characters? They are just as bad. It was like a train wreck reading ...more

3 likes · Like · see review