Book Review: The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins)

The eerily realistic characterization is done so well in Paula Hawkin's The Girl on the Train that the predictable ending is easily overlook. When my kindle hit 60% read, I put down the book and tried to solve the mystery. With the plot I had been given so far, I was spot on. Because Hawkins does such a great job of intermixing independent plots into one and diving into the psychology behind character's motives, the novel is still enjoyable. 

 Rachel daily rides on a train to and from work, and as she rides, she imagines a fake life of “Jason and Jess,” a couple living in a house that backs up to the track. She has created jobs, names, and a happy marriage as she looks for the couple each time her train passes. Many of the scenarios she creates mirror what she lost in her previous marriage. She then witnesses something from her train ride at Jason and Jess’s that she must tell the police, but her credibility is outweighed by her fantasies and past alcoholism. 

Before I go further DO NOT WATCH THE MOVIE unless you have read the book. What makes this book is the characterization, so without being in the characters' heads, Rachel is a stumbling idiotic drunk without motive, Megan appears extremely young-almost illegally young, and the movie becomes a soft porn. 

Hawkins keeps you turning the pages with her great use of first person. Each chapter is from a different character’s point of view, and each chapter changes to a different point on the time line, so once you are a given a nugget towards the truth, you may have to wait a few chapters because you will jump into the past of another character, then the present of another character before returning to that time line.  

The excellent characterization paired with realistic psychological dilemmas made characters believable despite some of their unrealistic actions. The characters are each unreliable because they deal with some heavy mental issues, such as alcoholism, abandonment, and abuse. But because you intimately get to know the characters from the first person, you understand and even empathize with some of the characters. Rachel always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time because of her addiction, but since you know intimately how much she is searching for the truth, her antics are forgivable. 

 I loved this book as a thriller. I'm ready to try Into the Water and searching for my Intro to Psychology textbook as I write this.  

I read The Girl on the Train  by Paula Hawkins (ISBN 1594634025) on Overdrive (a free app through your local library), but you can purchase the book on Amazon for $8.79 here.

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