The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins

Reviewer’s note:

With classic misdirection, the writer distracts us from the details — changing up murderers and victims fast enough to keep us reading. And, implausibly, rooting for the cold-blooded killer at this thriller’s core. This is one of the most spine-chilling reads, full of switchbacks and double crosses that I have come across. The book’s title and jacket offer no clues; the blockish, white font and blurred foliage on the cover are appealingly generic, but don’t offer any hints at the breathless ride contained within the pages.

In my opinion the author did a great job with the three character’s voices. All three of them felt unique and like me you will experience so, so many feelings reading their story. All of them are flawed, all of them have insecurities and fears and because of that all of them felt real and in some way even relatable. “I’m not the girl I used to be,” says the circling narration, a phrase that echoes throughout the film, linking the central characters, all of whom are variously living a lie.The narrative is skilfully split between three women whose lives interlink tragically. Hawkins juggles perspectives and timescales and considerable suspense builds up along with empathy for an unusual central character who does not immediately grab the reader.

Review:

The book centres around Rachel Megan and Anna. Anna is her ex-husband’s new wife and she is everything that Rachel wanted to be. Rachel is an unemployed alcoholic who rides the train to “work” every morning, using the train’s stops as an opportunity to spy on the perfect, miniature lives she can see from the tracks. She’s created a fictional life in her mind for a handsome couple, Scott and Megan whose home is just a few doors down from where Rachel and her husband used to live. As she looks out her window, Rachel can play the anonymous spectator, soaking up the afterglow of other people’s happiness to get her through the hours between gin and tonics on the train. When the story switches to Megan’s point of view, we realize quickly they aren’t the blissfully happy marrieds Rachel imagines them to be. Rachel discovers this for herself, when she sees Megan kissing a man who is not Scott in her backyard one day as the train passes Megan’s house. Soon after, Megan goes missing. When Megan’s body is unearthed from the forest, the plot thickens.

Rachel becomes obsessed with the mystery of what happened to Megan and what information she, Rachel, might have about her disappearance.Of course, Rachel can’t remember what happened when she left the train the night Megan disappeared as her way of dealing with the complication and confusion of leaving her voyeuristic seat on the train for the action beyond the tracks is to drink herself into oblivion.

The sections detailing Megan’s life before the disappearance hold a fair number of clues and false starts, but Megan is a disappointing wisp of a character — artistic, pixie-like. Anna is even worse. Her entire personality is based on her dislike of Rachel, and Anna’s passages don’t contain anything interesting, as she spends most of her days whining to her husband and complaining about Rachel. In She’s an effective foil for Rachel because she’s prim and put-together and maternal, everything Rachel wishes she could be.

Alternating points of view is a tricky prospect; it can easily come off as unnecessary or gimmicky. But Hawkins uses the technique masterfully, giving just enough away each chapter. None of the revelations in The Girl on the Train are tidy, and the picture gets much murkier before the mystery is resolved.The ending plays out like a movie scene — perhaps a little too much like one, though it's easy to forgive a little melodrama when the prose that's led up to it is so solid. What really makes this a gripping novel is Hawkins' remarkable understanding of the limits of human knowledge, and the degree to which memory and imagination can get intertwined.

Happy Reading.