Book Review-The Girl on the Train

I love books with unreliable narrators.  Not only do I have the main plot to enjoy, but I also have the puzzle of which part of the narration is true.  Imagine my delight on finding a book with three narrators, all unreliable! The Girl on the Train is told by Rachel, Anna, and Megan.  Rachel is the lead narrator, if you will.  She takes the train into and out of London everyday.  It goes by the houses of Anna and Megan slowly enough that Racel often sees Megan and her husband.  She doesn't know Megan so she makes up stories about their life together.  Anna is married to Tom, Rachel's ex husband, who lives in the house that Tom and Rachel lived in. As Rachel continues her narration we learn that she drinks heavily and is having some trouble coming to terms with her divorce.  When she sees Megan with another man she is disappointed.  The next day Megan goes missing and Rachel feels the need to tell the police and Megan's husband about seeing the strange man.  Her drinking makes this problematic as the police don't believe her, and she was in the neighborhood the night of the disappearence but doesn't remember anything from that night. When Anna takes over the narration, we learn that she is feeling harrased by Rachel because Rachel calls often and intrudes on her new life with Tom and their baby.  Anna, though, has her own agenda.  She had an affair withTom while he was still married to Rachel. Megan's narration starts about a year earlier than the rest of the book and describes the problems she is having with her life and marriage...not the perfect marriage that Rachel had invisioned, nor the perfect life. As the three lines of narration wend their way through the story, you realize that not everything is at it seems.  As a reader, you feel sympathy for first one, then the other.  They are all deeply flawed people, trying to find their ways out of situations, some of which are their own making. And then there are the men.  Tom, Scott, and the therapist that first Megan, then Rachel, sees.  Any of the characters could have caused Megan's disappearance.  Everyone has skeletons in their respective closets, which make the book very interesting.  It has been compared to Gone Girl quite a bit, partly because of the husband/wife dynamics and partly because of the twist at the end; but the twist wasn't as unexpected as in Gone Girl, and in the end, it wasn't as dark.  This is not a book with a hero in it, and at one point I didn't like any of the characters, but there is character growth.  Definitely a good mystery.

The Girl on the Train By Hawkins, Paula 2015-01 - Riverhead Books 9781594633669 Check Our Catalog Instant #1 "New York Times" Bestseller "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" "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 …More

Complimentary Reads

Gone Girl By Flynn, Gillian 2014-04 - Broadway Books 9780307588371 Check Our Catalog Flynn's toxic mix of sharp-edged wit with deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds readers at every turn. When his wife disappears on their anniversary, Nick starts having cringe-worthy daydreams and becomes oddly evasive, eschewing his golden boy past. …More

Strangers on a Train By Highsmith, Patricia 2001-08 - W. W. Norton & Company 9780393321982 Check Our Catalog Two men, a tennis star and a psychopath, meet by chance on a train and "swap" murders. "Strangers on a Train", Highsmith's first novel, was the source for Alfred Hitchcock's classic masterpiece. …More

Cabin 3033 By Clarke, Anna 1989-10 - Jove Books 9781557732514 Check Our Catalog …More