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.
I picked ’The Girl on the Train’ up because it is being raved about. The bestselling thriller at the moment, tagged as the next ‘Gone Girl’, and because it’s cheap for a hardback at £12.99.
Written in first person, it is quick and interesting and very easy to become absorbed by from the first page. I empathised with Rachel at first – she’s an alcoholic who has gone a bit off the rails and she sees something happen whilst on her travels that worries her. She wants to help, she wants something to focus her attention on and to become a bit obsessed with.
Quickly I began to realise that I couldn’t get on with Rachel as a narrator. She’s unreliable (and this to me is a bit of a cop out, you can get away with anything in your plot if your protagonist is literally blind drunk), she gets herself into a mess and crawls back to bed apologising to her flatmate. Over and over and over again. Backwards and forwards, and bumping into the ex and his new wife again and again. It does get a little bit tedious at times, but the suspense is still there as Hawkins drops some unexpected twists into the plot that make up for the repetition.
Hawkins flicks easily between each woman’s viewpoint. Usually it’s a little jarring to have to get to know a new character, but she introduces them seamlessly and it doesn’t feel intrusive or disjointed. The three women connected by this thriller have been fired from their job or made redundant or have given up their career for the family; alcoholics and cheaters and other things that I cannot mention for fear of spoilers. A lot of people have these experiences, but Hawkins doesn’t give her protagonists any real personality or depth which makes them seem a bit flat. Not exactly a cast of strong ladies here, which I find disappointing for such a runaway bestseller. Usually there is at least one character that you can get along with in some way, but in ‘The Girl on the Train’ I didn’t find any.
I’ve heard different things from different readers about the big reveal. Some people (like myself) guessed whodunnit before they were told; and others were quite surprised and loved the ending. I found the ending a little bit of an anti-climax but not the biggest let down. It’s definitely worth sticking with until the very end.
I did mostly enjoy this novel and would recommend it to anybody that likes a psychological thriller. It might not have great characters, but the little twists in the plot are enough to keep you guessing throughout. Also, with it being quick and easy to get into it is the perfect book for your commute – I read this on the train to work. ‘The Girl on the Train’ will also make a good holiday read when it is released in paperback, though you’ll have to wait until next year for that!
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