The Girl on the Train: A Novel

Paula Hawkins

Jan 2015 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

The #1 New York Times bestseller, USA Today Book of the Year and now a major motion picture starring Emily Blunt.
 
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple having breakfast on their deck. She's even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Ratings and reviews

Hated gone girl and this seems the same fruggin slowwww start and a stupid self pitying delussional drunk as her main . The other 2 females are just as stupid and whiney and deserve what happens to them. None of the 3v take responsibility or feel bad for how they act. .B I don't think she's a skilled writer ..just drags and drags w silly prattle ...the fact thus us Gina be a movie shows how bad Hollywood as become the days..As a female I cringe. .need to quit reading female "writers"....horrible

I just finished it today. It drags on, it has spelling and grammar mistakes (had to point that out being the grammar nazi that I am). It got good toward the end of it. The character of Rachel is extremely depressing, and it's highly predictable. She came off to me as crazy, a bit a psychopath. All up until the last few chapters did I really begin to become intrigued . It was decent overall but isn't something I'd read again a few years from now to refresh my memory.

Writing was very fluid, thoughts and motions conveyed in a first person retrospect gives the feeling of being inside the heads of those you read, it is arranged as a journal, as if picked up after the fact and post events having took place, while feeling in the moment due to a near obsessive writing of first person thought. It forms in your mind trying to understand the mental conditioning, you become accustomed to the way the characters think and behave. The end is almost dreamlike in in the way it unfolds, it is out of place for the books characters, in a believable way though, as if suddenly a moment of clarity frames for them, but not you, you are reading their thoughts after the fact. Outstanding book that I truly loved, and am definitely going to do another read of.

About the author

Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist for fifteen years before turning her hand to fiction. The Girl on the Train is her first thriller. An international #1 bestseller, published in 50 countries and over 40 languages, it has sold over 11 million copies worldwide and has been adapted into a major motion picture starring Emily Blunt. Hawkins was born in Zimbabwe and now lives in London.