THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN ; BOOK REVIEW

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN - BOOK REVIEW

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time,overlooking a row of back gardens.
She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. 'Jess and Jasson' , she calls them. Their life-as she sees it is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy too.

UNTIL TODAY

And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on , but it's enough.

Now everything has changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she's only watched from afar. 

Now they'll see: she's much more than just "THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN"


SUMMARY (without spoilers).


Rachel being an emotional wreck and a heavy drinker might not be the most stable person you know, but she saw what she saw.
She's just a random girl who's happy with her life until one day her husband 'Tom' leaves her for another woman 'Anna'.
Rachel's life changes forever.She is already very depressed for the reason that she cannot have kids, and this adds a cherry on the top. She is a MESS. Nothing is going right in her life except her very kind flatmate 'Cathy' who decides to let someone as unstable as Rachel stay with her. 
She commutes every single day from the same train to and from work. She has grown accustomed to seeing a couple that she refers to as 'Jess and Jason' on their porch , in the balcony as a happy married couple. She fantasizes them until one day she sees something so shocking that it's only for a second that she sees it, but it sprinkles salt on her old wounds and CHANGES EVERYTHING. 
Soon, before even realizing she becomes a part of their lives and starts investigating more about them.
She not only realizes that their actual names are' Megan and Scott' but also that their lives are not that perfect after all , infact their lives are far from normal.
After Megan goes missing, the rest of the story is more or less about finding what  happened.
Is Megan alive? Did she run away? Or is she murdered?
It all remains a mystery.Rachel is only trying to help in this whole scenario, but being called an unreliable witness by inspector Riley, will anyone listen to her?
Will Rachel's story be heard?



My favorite Quotes from the book


"The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mold yourself through the gaps”
"I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts.Who was it said that following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all.”

"I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head.”

"It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to mourn for it.”

"When did you become so weak?” I don’t know. I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it.”

"But I did become sadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them.”

"And I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away.”


“Life is not a paragraph, and death is no parenthesis."

(This is a reference to an E.E. Cummings poem within the author's work)
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

MY REVIEW;

This book is a thriller  but I felt that it does get predictable at times, 
Also , you really need to sit down and read it through as it gets boring a lot of times. 
It definitely isn't the book one would not keep down reading. Infact its very easy to deviate from the book. 
It says its very suspenseful but I thought that Paula Hawkins disclosed the suspense very soon in the novel. 
If you want a simple read, you can go for it as it is very straight forward but a thriller at the same time.
I'll give it 3 stars out of 5. 

SIMILAR BOOKS

1) Gone Girl -Gyllian Flynn
2)Into the water - Paula Hawkins
3)The woman in cabin 10 -Ruth Ware
4) Couple next door - Shari Lapena

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