The Girl on the Train

Hawkins, Paula. The Girl on the Train. New York: Riverhead Books. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

There is a pile of clothing on the side of the train tracks.

LIght-blue cloth -- a shirt, perhaps -- jumbled up with something dirty white. It's probably rubbish, part of a load dumped into the scrubby little wood up the bank. I could have been left behind by the engineers who work this part of the track, they're here often enough. 

Or it could be something else.

Description:

Wow, what a ride this book is! Paula Hawkins' debut novel, The Girl on the Train, provides everything a great psychological thriller should: great characters entangled in a quietly unsettling mystery, all told in a taut narrative by three completely unreliable women. Each narrator has a separate perspective on the actions she sees, participates in, or just imagines, while keeping numerous secrets from everyone else, including us readers.

The first narrator, Rachel, is a train commuter who dreamily looks at the people outside her window as she rides into town each morning and back each evening. One particular couple catches her attention for their wholesomeness and the obvious love they show each other as the train slowly passes their house. Rachel names them "Jess and Jason," and creates an imaginary life about the two of them. Their happiness is in contrast to Rachel's own sadness over her breakup with husband Tom, his affair, and subsequent marriage and baby. Rachel also can see ex-husband Tom and new wife Anna from the train since they live only a few doors away from Jess and Jason in Rachel's old house.

Anna, who was Tom's lover and is now his new wife, also becomes a narrator, relating details in her happy family life but also hints at her frustration with Rachel, who continually phones Tom and their house. Anna has even spotted Rachel drunkenly walking by Anna's house occasionally. And Anna can't forget an incident with Rachel and Anna's baby that is shocking to the new mother.

Jess, the final narrator, fills in other gaps about her life with husband Jason, revealing a life very different than the one imagined by Rachel from her window on the passing train.

Each of these women has a life that intertwines with these other women (and men), often in ways unbeknownst to the others, that lead to supreme amounts of tensions, ill-feelings, and poor decisions which exasperate a variety of situations.

One day Rachel observes Jess passionately kissing a man in her yard who is not her husband. This naturally brings up memories of her own husband's infidelity and shatters her imaginary world of Jess as the perfect, happily married wife. 

I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hears. Who was it said that following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all....if I saw Jess, I would spit in her face. I would scratch her eyes out.

The next day the news reports a missing woman who Rachel recognizes as her Jess. Rachel follows the story and learns Jess' real name is Megan along with some details of Megan's real life. Rachel tries to become involved in the mystery, but her heavy drinking and desire to do good for Megan's idealized husband (now identified as Scott) cause more tension and disbelief for the police and others involved.

But things are just getting starting. There are so many lives, so many lies, so many secret involvements and hidden behaviors to propel the plots of ten books. But The Girl on the Train skillfully weaves these separate people and narrations into one gripping story that is impossible to put down until the final mystery is solved and the secrets untangled.

It is a great book that makes you, upon finishing the last sentences, immediately go back and reread the first part of the book again as I did, this time noticing the hints and lies right away. Delightful, and deliciously thrilling on so many levels. Can't wait for the next book from Paula Hawkins.

There is nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl

When Amy Dunne disappears on her firth wedding anniversary, husband Nick is suspected of murdering her. But there is much more at work here in this complex world of unreliable, conniving narrators and a broken relationship. (previously reviewed here)

Caletti, Deb. He's Gone

Dani Keller wakes up on an ordinary Sunday morning to find her husband is not in bed with her. In fact, she cannot remember what happened to him after a party and argument the night before. He's gone. Hours, then days pass and no useful information is uncovered. Dani painstakingly recalls their lives together and apart, looking for clues to explain his disappearance from their happy(?) existence. Unexpectedly involving. I loved it.