The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train has been recommended to me by at least a dozen people in the last year and it keeps popping up on lists of books for people who loved Gone Girl so obviously I had to give it a read.

I'm so glad I did. Author Paula Hawkins is absolutely talented at building suspense and setting a scene, but she where she really shines is her ability to create real, gritty characters. The people in this book are simultaneously pathetic and revolting and very, very, uncomfortably real.

There's Rachel - the titular girl on the train. She's depressed and she's lonely and she's a mess. She rides the train into London every day, staring out the windows and making up stories about strangers in an effort to avoid her own problems. Her husband is gone, she's been fired from the job she pretends to go to each day and she's obviously (to everyone else, anyway) an alcoholic. I pitied her, but at the same time wanted to shake her by her shoulders and tell her to get a grip already. Stop being so weak. Right up until the end I found myself withholding sympathy from her, figuring that she was using the classic addict's technique of manipulation to make herself seem less blameless than she was. To make excuses and avoid taking responsibility. And really, the fact that I thought I was being manipulated by a fictional character goes to show exactly how good a writer Hawkins is.

Megan - the mystery of the story. Where did she go? What happened to her? I found Megan to be hard to connect with.  Her sections were the only ones I had trouble with. I couldn't relate in any way to her. She seemed so detached from life.

Anna, the Other Woman who has stolen Rachel's life. I don't have much to say about her other than that she is just. The. Worst. Imagine the bitchiest, most insecure junior high school mean girl and that's Anna.

And Tom. Awful, awful, awful Tom. Rachel's ex - Tom is the biggest gaslighter ever in the history of the world. I hated him from the start and only hated him more as the story went on.

So. All these characters with hardly a redeeming quality among them to make you want to root for them and yet - I loved it. Truly. I stayed up late 2 nights in a row to finish it. The story just sucked me right in and didn't let go.

Hawkins has a gift for capturing the inner voice of alcoholic Rachel and the spiteful attention-seeking of Anna. So many writers fail at giving characters individual voices when shifting perspectives in a novel, yet Hawkins seems to do it effortlessly. Even the disconnectedness of Megan may well have been on purpose - no one seems to be able to get very close to her in the book either.

I look forward to reading more from this author.