Last Updated on 12:57 AM by Lilliana Tseka
The Girl on the Train or as i would prefer it to be The Woman on the Train is a book you literally read in one night. That’s all it takes one night, not because it’s a small book but because you just can’t let the book out of your hands, you just have to see what is going to happen, you must know…
The story of The Girl on the Train connects the lives of three women, Rachel’s, Anna’s and Megan’s. You can see that the story unravels through their individual stories but mostly Rachel’s. Rachel is the main character, a woman wrecked by the fact that she couldn’t have children, her husband Tom, left her for a younger woman named Anna, had immediately a child and lived at the house she chose, she bought and she furnished. Rachel is obsessed with Tom, he calls him every now and then, when drunk to tell him that she still loves him. Though Tom is annoyed he seems always to come to her rescue. Rachel passes everyday with the train from the suburbs to London from her old neighborhood, she can see her old house on Witney Street but she can’t stand looking at it, it’s too much to bear, anyhow that’s not even the one house that really interests her, it’s the one on number 32. This is where Jess lives that is actually Megan. Rachel loves watching Megan’s life as she drinks at 8:30 in the morning canned gin tonic. Yes, she is a drunk, a hot mess and lost her whole old life, but seeing Megan’s life gives her purpose. She imagines how in love she must be with her husband Scott, the way she kisses him, the way he caresses her, and thinks of her own long lost life. One day something terrible happens and Megan disappears, Rachel realizes that somehow she is involved but she just can’t understand in what way, she is too damn drunk all of the time and she can’t remember. However she just can’t stay away, she must help, she must find what happened to Megan – her Jess. She runs to the police to tell everything she observed all this time, but she is once again drunk, an unreliable witness. She then turns to Scott, Megan’s husband, he must tell him everything, help him find beautiful Megan, but as the story unravels, Megan is not the perfect woman she used to believe. In the process of finding the truth she understands that everyone is linked, everyone’s life is a lie.
I know what you are going to say it’s a Gone Girl type of thriller, well maybe it is but what’s wrong with that? I love a good thriller book with great twists and I love broken characters, these are the kind that make good stories.
When i started reading it I was so thrilled that I had to tell the story to someone that wasn’t anxious to see the movie or read the book, and that one was my husband, he became right away a fan of the story and wanted to know more so I kept reading the book to him but when he told me… fuck, what the hell is going on there…i found myself wondering if this book had a soap opera like taste? I think the answer in no, though a lot is happening and the characters are linked the writer Paula Hawkins is hiding every link and hint in a clever way and doesn’t leave the story to become cheap. The book is effortlessly suspenseful and keeps the reader on edge to the very end. Well, I guess that is why the book took the fast track to becoming a movie, now if the movies adaption is close to the book, I’m not so sure because when you pick Emily Blunt for Rachel’s character I don’t know how you can imagine her as the fat, ugly, drunk, and rubbernecker girl. A must read!