The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins (Review)

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Genres: Mystery, Fiction
Publication date: January 13th 2015
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Format: hardcover, 336 pages
How I got it: I purchased it from Amazon
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My rating: 3/5
 
EVERY DAY THE SAME
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 breakfasting 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.

UNTIL TODAY
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?

..............................................................................

  

My thoughts:

This book follows Rachel who takes the same train every morning and night that stops around almost the same place everyday watching the same houses.   Rachael watches a couple that she has created an entire backstory too.   One day she finds out that the women who she watches is missing. The book is told from several point of views in different chapters and is told from current and past happenings. 

I enjoyed how the book was setup by the author.  I liked that we got a look into what happened in the past as well as we got to see different perspectives of Rachael.  The author did a great job setting up the characters to each have different information about the crime.   

Rachael was a challenging character to love in the book.  I definitely have a love/hate relationship with her, but by the end of the book I was rooting for her to get better.  I felt like Rachel's alcohol issue is bought up a lot, but it didn't seem like she was to pressed to fix this issue and she didn't seem to want help either.  I felt like the author did a great job keeping up with the issues Rachael had and had the character stay very true to herself. 

I want to note I didn't see the movie or read any spoilers before I read this book, but for some reason I saw the ending coming.   I felt like the action picked up a lot towards the end of the book and we got a lot of backstory up onto the point of the action.  The author does a great job once the action starts happening and it made me not want to put the book down until I found out what was going to happen. 

My two major issues with the book is one for some reason I could see what was going to happen at the end.   I am not sure if it was just the differences between Rachael's story and Anna's story that lead me to the conclusion too quickly.    My second issue was the story itself some of the details included I felt where sort of pointless to add to the story and I wanted to read about more action happening.  I felt like the beginning of the book sort of dragged along and then all the sudden tons of things started to happen. 

I would suggest this book as a nighttime read.  I felt like this book was easy for me to pickup and put down.  I found the beginning of the book to be a little slower paced and the author was really just setting up a lot of the background, which caused me to find natural stopping points. 

 ..............................................................................

About the Author

Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist for fifteen years before turning her hand to fiction.

Born and brought up in Zimbabwe, Paula moved to London in 1989 and has lived there ever since. The Girl on the Train is her first thriller.

Author Links: