The Girl on the Train
A Novel
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4.4 • 26.4K Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The #1 New York Times Bestseller, USA Today Book of the Year, now a major motion picture starring Emily Blunt.
The debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives, from the author of Into the Water and A Slow Fire Burning.
“Nothing is more addicting than The Girl on the Train.”—Vanity Fair
“The Girl on the Train has more fun with unreliable narration than any chiller since Gone Girl. . . . [It] is liable to draw a large, bedazzled readership.”—The New York Times
“Marries movie noir with novelistic trickery. . . hang on tight. You'll be surprised by what horrors lurk around the bend.”—USA Today
“Like its train, the story blasts through the stagnation of these lives in suburban London and the reader cannot help but turn pages.”—The Boston Globe
“Gone Girl fans will devour this psychological thriller.”—People
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?
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
Enticing
I read this book over the course of 10 days. At first, I read it in small sections, almost daily, skipping 1 or two days only. When I got to the halfway point, I read it at an exponentially quick pace - and I read the last 100 pages in the same night. This book offers three different perspectives, warping the timelines perfectly to leave the reader always wondering what’s gonna happen next. The three main characters, all women, are sometimes relatable, as none of them live perfect lives - they deal with internal and external battles of their own, their stories unfolding before our eyes... slowly colliding, accelerating the story so much more. This murder mystery book had an ending I was not prepared for, and I don’t think anyone else was, which is why the ratings and reviews are only good for this nice.
Quick fun read
It was an easy read. I enjoyed the mystery of it all.
I just love it
I read it in Spanish and English and both ways I got stuck trying to figure out how everything was going to end