Review: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 1378 KB
• Print Length: 320 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Canada (Jan. 6 2015)
• Sold by: Random House Canada, Incorp.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00M60RKW8

Book Description


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

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. 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.

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 offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

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.

About the Author


 Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist for fifteen years before turning her hand to fiction.

Born and brought up in Zimbabwe, Paula moved to London in 1989 and has lived there ever since. The Girl on the Train is her first thriller.

My Review

The Girl on the Train is the book to read at the moment...and it should be. Oh my goodness, the twists and turns this story takes. I was mesmerized. I could not put it down. It is so addicting with its unexpected and compelling twists.

Did I like any of the characters? No. But it doesn't matter. I still could not stop reading. The more you read, the more the story unfolds. The more the layers of the characters real personalities are peeled back. And the more you realize you really don't know anything about anyone! Scary!

I had no idea that you could buy gin and tonic in a can like soda in the UK. You never know what you are going to learn.  Rachel, the main narrator, is an alcoholic who drink to such excess that she is prone to blackouts. Every weekday she takes the train into London and passes the house she lived in with her exhusband. The husband who know lives there with his new wife and baby. He was having an affair with the new wife while still married to the pining barren Rachel. Her life has fallen apart and yet every day she tortures herself, looking at their house. She invents personas for the new neighbours who she sees in their garden as the train passes. She torments herself while imagining a perfect life for these people she knows nothing about...but one morning she sees something shocking. Then there is someone missing and our Rachel knows that somehow she is involved...but her alcohol clouded world won't reveal the truth...at first.

This is a debut thriller that really hits the mark! Must read!!!