Book Review: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

About the Book:

The Girl on the Train

The debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people’s lives.

EVERY DAY THE SAME
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

UNTIL TODAY
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

My Thoughts:

Wow. This is a mind blowing, brilliantly written psychological thriller that is literally a train ride! Written in the POV’s of three of the characters, with interchanging and different dates, the author weaves a tale that slowly brings all of them together.

At first, I kept losing track of the dates mentioned at the beginning of each chapter and hence ended up rather confused about the happenings. Rachel, the main protagonist, takes the train everyday and as she passes a particular station, she sees a house and it’s occupants everyday, to the extent that she had even given them imaginary names. Her husband, Tom left her to marry Anna and this did not sit well with her. The fact that they had a little daughter only made things worse. Rachel could not stop her growing dependency on alcohol nor the many times she called or emailed her ex-husband. She also lost her job and ends up constantly lying to the lady whose apartment she shares. Little does she know that she would see something rather shocking and then their lives would eventually meet and their paths would become extremely tangled.

The thoughts run deep, the psych playing a major role. Alcoholism coupled with anger makes Rachel behave rather unconventionally. The author slowly brings out the story behind each of the three women in the story and shows us exactly how deep the hurt goes. They are broken and seeking solace and trying to find themselves in any way that they can. When Megan goes missing, Rachel tries to figure out what happened, going back in her mind to the night when all the three women were supposed to have been in the same area. The police contact her when Anna, her ex-husbands wife sees a chance to throw her name out there and thus follows the rest of the plot.

The author emphasizes a lot on the train journey too and develops the story based on this spanning a number of days. She also describes, with intricate details, the events from the past that affected the psyche of her characters. With Megan, it is always dates in the past when compared to Rachel’s timeline. Though a little confusing, the author consistently maintains this trend and this lends some more intrigue to the plot. We are also treated to a dose of domesticity and how relationships are tested when things don’t go the way we expect them to. Can you trust your eyes and the things you saw? Is it possible to imagine a whole existence and life? These are just a few of the questions that reading this book will raise in the readers mind.

An overall thrilling and compelling read, this is another book in the style of Gone Girl that will have the reader hooked until the very end with an ending to shock. The starting may seem strange, the finish line stranger and in the middle, the reader is sure to get lost on the never ending journey of life much like that of the train.

Click the link below to get the book on Amazon.

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Book Review: Rule Number One by Rory Goodwin

About the Book:

Rule Number One (An Oswald Metzger Novella Series Book 1)

Set in Brisbane Australia, a disgraced Australian Football League Star is found dead on the day of his sentencing at the Brisbane District Courts in an apparent suicide.
Detective Baxter knows things aren’t always as they seem and decides to follow a hunch one last time before he retires. But before he can do that he also has one more score to settle.
Family man, Oswald ‘Ozzy’ Metzger is a regular bloke, loving father and committed husband driven by duty, love and honour. Following his heart and driven by what he believes in, being vegan, he doesn’t believe in violence but does believe in justice for the innocent.
Monica runs a crisis centre for women and children, when Detective Baxter comes asking questions she is faced with the confronting reality that all may not be as it seems.

My Thoughts:

This story is a novella, short and fast paced. When a Football player is found dead in the bathrooms of the courthouse, the day of his sentencing, an investigation is opened into the same. Speculation on whether it is a suicide or a murder are rife and in the midst of it all is Detective Baxter, whose aim is to wrap up this one last case before he retires.

In the course of the same, we meet Monica, who runs a crisis centre to help women and who knew the football player’s ex-girlfriend. What happens when you set out to investigate one thing, but while asking questions, you discover something more? The same happens as Detective Baxter follows up on a hunch. In parallel, we are introduced to Oswald, Monica’s husband. As a series of events unfold, the reader is taken on a journey with our very own serial killer with a conscience.

The story ends in quite a different way and this is one of the things that I enjoyed immensely about the book. The author went ahead with an unusual end. Of course some parts of the climax are cliche and expected, but for the most of it, the end was a good turn of events, making it worth the read.

As all the ends come together, the author gives us enough bait to keep us hooked on and waiting in the hopes that there may be another novella or novel to tell us what happens to Ozzy and Monica. The novella is good for a quick read and for those who enjoy the genre!