Steph Reads: 'The Girl On the Train' by Paula Hawkins

       The Girl on the Train has been the most recent talk of the town and was my next choice to read in this busy semester. This thrilling novel has several narrators, the main one being Rachel, an alcoholic divorcee who rides the train every day in the guise of still having the job she has long since been fired from. Rachel rides past her old home every day in which her ex husband along with the woman he left Rachel for still reside. Rachel takes solace in observing and embellishing the lives of a seemingly perfect couple a few houses down from her painful past with her own musings of what their occupations, names, dreams, and talents are. One day on her usual commute, Rachel witnesses a startling event at the couples' home, and after the girlfriend goes missing shortly after, Rachel becomes involved in a police investigation that keeps you guessing until the very end.  With Rachel's shoddy memory filled with black outs due to her drunken escapades, Rachel gets so far wrapped up in this mystery that she becomes a suspect in a crime she can't even remember if she committed.
      I've heard a lot of people compare this story to 'Gone Girl,' and while there are many similarities in the switching of unreliable narrators, themes of misogyny, turmoil underneath a seemingly perfect marriage, and unhelpful police investigations, the books are different enough in their tone and unwinding of the story that I think your feelings toward one of the novels won't necessarily dictate your feelings on the other.
       One of the things I loved about this book was how emotional I felt toward the different characters. Rachel was so frustratingly pathetic at times that I wanted to throw my book across the room, and her ex-husband's wife could be so utterly blind to her surroundings that I found myself shaking my head and rolling my eyes while reading. This book kept me completely engaged and guessing the mystery through the end. Anyone that likes a good thriller or mystery would certainly enjoy this novel.

xxSJ


Check out my other Steph Reads posts!
Bossy Pants by Tina Fey
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks
Someday Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
The Husband's Secret by Lianne Moriarty
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
What Alice Forgot by Lianne Moriarty
Uninvited by Sophie Jordan
Splintered by AG Howard
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Beneath the Glitter by Elle and Blair Fowler