Book Review: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Goodreads:

A debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives.

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. 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.

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 offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

A compulsively readable, emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller that draws comparisons to Gone Girl, The Silent Wife, or Before I Go to Sleep, this is an electrifying debut embraced by readers across markets and categories.

4.5 stars out of 5

 I received this eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 


I was super excited to get into this book, a lot of people resembled it to Gone Girl and don't get me wrong, I LOVED this book.. but Gone Girl cannot be topped. 

This follows Rachel, a woman with too many troubles of her own and discovers an escape everyday on the train. She watches a couple on the terrace of their house and fantasizes about their relationship - their names, their jobs and their personalities. One day, crisis strikes and disrupts her already messed up life. Rachel finds herself involved in stuff that she cannot get out of. She was an unreliable narrator, one of many characters that I strongly disliked. All of the characters in this one were faulty characters and they were just terrible. 

I must say that this book was kind of boring at the start, it took me some time to get into it. Once I did, I was trying to crack the mysteries and figure out where on earth did the missing person go. I was juggling possibilities and honestly, I didn't see the ending coming AT ALL. I didn't see ANYTHING coming and that's why my rating was that high. 

The writing was phenomenal. Paula Hawkins made me visualize everything so perfectly and she had this ability of incorporating random clues throughout the book that tie in perfectly in the end. A mystery/thriller genius, I must say. 

All in all, this book was a fantastic ride, it had me thinking to this very day and I feel like it did stick with me. I remember every detail vividly and I'm writing this review a month or so after reading the book, that's an indication of how good it was! 

On the other hand, this book was a bit graphic, I would NOT recommend it to young readers. 

SPOILERS

(highlight to view)

I HATED RACHEL TOO MUCH!!! Her clinging to Tom after clearly moving on bothered me to a huge extent. Her stalking and creeping as well, like come on Rachel!! Put your shit together. Her weakness to alcohol and her drinking problem bothered me as well, her recollections were extremely unreliable and no one was taking her seriously because of that. She put herself in terrible situations, but in the end, she made up for everything by killing Tom! I was rooting for her and Megan to end that motherfucker's life haha. Way to go!

I never suspected Tom except for when he took Rachel to "talk" and didn't tell Anna about it. I thought he was cornering her somewhere private so he can end her life without anyone noticing. Ironically enough, he did that to Megan. 

Okay, now with Anna's POV incorporation. I knew that something was bound to happen with her POV being thrown into the mix. I hated her nonetheless, the only character that was likable was her daughter haha

Scott, you have some serious anger management issues and that just fucked you over as a husband of a missing person/a dead woman. (Why did they say that she was dead in the synopsis? I just noticed that and hey, THAT'S A SPOILER. Thank God I didn't pay much attention to it while reading this.) - I suspected him all along, but I figured it'd be too cliche if he really was the killer. The husband is never the killer (thanks Gone Girl). 

Have you read The Girl on the Train?! What did you think? If not, are you excited? :) 

Have a great day!