The Girl on the Train
A Novel
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4.4 • 27.4K Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
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?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
We couldn’t wait to pick up this nail-biting psychological thriller every free moment we got. The Girl on the Train hurtles along, building up just the right amount of fear and menace along the way. Rachel is a mess, an alcoholic commuter pining for her ex-husband—who’s moved on with a new wife and a baby. As she rides the train back and forth from the suburbs to London each day, she obsesses about the seemingly perfect life of the couple who lives in a cozy row house along the train tracks. But looks can be deceiving, and author Paula Hawkins does a stunning job playing with our perceptions.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rachel Watson, the principal narrator of Hawkins's psychologically astute debut, is obsessed with her ex-husband, Tom. She's having a hard time putting the past behind her, especially since she confronts it daily, during the hourlong commute to London from her rented room in Ashbury, Oxfordshire, when her train passes the Victorian house she once shared with Tom. She also frequently spies an attractive couple, four doors down from her former home, who she imagines to be enjoying the happily-ever-after that eluded her. Then, suddenly, the woman, pixie-ish blonde Megan Hipwell, vanishes only to turn up on the front page of the tabloids as missing. The police want to question Rachel, after Anna, Tom's new wife, tells them that Rachel was in the area drunkenly out of control around the time of Megan's disappearance. Hawkins, formerly deputy personal finance editor of the Times of London, deftly shifts between the accounts of the addled Rachel, as she desperately tries to remember what happened, Megan, and, eventually, Anna, for maximum suspense. The surprise-packed narratives hurtle toward a stunning climax, horrifying as a train wreck and just as riveting.
Customer Reviews
Readsalot
Great book. Enjoyed the different approach in writing. Rachel's struggles to regain control of her life very gripping and heartbreaking at times.
Slow and predictable
I never write reviews, but this time I felt I needed to in order to warn those who read the other amazing reviews on this book and think it will be a fast-paced thriller with a twist ending like I did. The story trudges along at a snail's pace, and you figure out the ending about halfway through it. Not a book I recommend. A lot of people are comparing it to Gone a girl, but I feel that Gone Girl is better.
Irritating Characters
Don't buy the book. It's too predictable with some of the most irritating characters ever developed.