Book of the week: The girl on the train
I know I am not the first to jump on the bandwagon and I'd love to be different and pick something else as my book of the week but then I would be lying because this is without a doubt the best book I've read this year never mind this week. That probably doesn't sound all that impressive until you take into account the fact that I read several books a week.
The girl on the train is about a woman, Rachel, who catches the same train to London every day. On this journey the train stops at the same signal every time, allowing Rachel to catch a glimpse of the same couple and over time she starts to feel as though she knows them and make up stories about their lives. Then one day she witnesses something shocking that changes everything and suddenly she has the opportunity to step into their lives and become more than just the girl on the train.
It has been compared to Gillian Flynn's Gone girl and within a few pages it is easy to see why. It's a gripping thriller and if you like your characters dark and twisty then you're in for a treat. The story is told through the eyes of an unreliable narrator although it took a little while for me to see that her version of events was unravelling and there was infinitely more to the story than she was letting on. I think that adds to the intrigue within the story.
It was one of those books that I picked up and lost all sense of time and got to the point that nothing else mattered only finishing the book. In the end I was disappointed I had gotten through it so quickly but only because I could no longer look forward to reading it. In the several days since I have finished it and gone on to read other things I have found that I have been carrying the story with me and wishing everyone I know would hurry up and read it so we can discuss it properly without me giving essential parts of the plot.
Rachel at first glance seems to be a business woman who is just passing time on her long commute by creating imaginary lives for the strangers she sees every day. It was not long into the story that I realised that she was far more complex than that and there was a lot more to her than met the eye. She had experienced a very messy marriage breakdown she was dealing with badly and was pretty untogether, doing an awful job of managing her personal problems. The more I read on and became involved in her story, the less I liked her as a character and began to sympathise somewhat with her initially difficult seeming, house mate. I found myself cringing at some of her behaviour and shouting no ( in my head as I am not a complete loon) as she made bad decision after bad decision.
In the girl on the train, it is not just the main character that is hiding more than you would think, everyone seemed to have some kind of dark secret or hidden complexity which just added to the richness of the story. I became emotionally involved in the story despite not finding myself more attached to one character over another. In fact I would go so far as to say I ranged between mild annoyance and extreme dislike for almost everyone I got to know within the story and yet it still got me in it's grip and I actually couldn't put it down until all the facts had been laid bare. By three quarters way through I thought I had the story all figured out and was just waiting impatiently for the other characters to catch on and then I realised my mistake. Rachel started to seem a little less crazy and her story may not have been all it appeared to be. While I wouldn't say it ends on happy ending there was a certain degree of satisfaction to its conclusion.
Definitely the best thriller I have read since Elizabeth Haynes 'In the darkest corner' and it was worth all the hype. If you only read one thriller or even just one book this year then make it The girl on the train (but don't tell me it's the only book you're going to read because as an avid reader that will make me very sad).
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