The Girl on the Train

I have not blogged in months. This is generally the way of things--the way of all flesh, as perhaps Samuel Butler would have it--though I haven't read that to know if the way of all flesh is to commit to doing something and then to get lazy and stop. His way is probably about committing licentious affairs or dying tragically or not-so-tragically. Who knows, maybe I'll read it and blog about, but at this rate, it's not likely. 

Anyway, I am facing a trial-by-fire for a book club; I have recently moved back to my home state of Kansas and have been invited on a trial basis to join a friend's book club. Everyone must agree it's a good fit. I worry that my humor and cynicism is rarely a good fit for anything. Except maybe to join Statler and Waldorf in heckling. So I thought I'd write a post about the book so I would at least retain the plot and characters until next week's meeting. [This is how bad my memory is... and why I want to blog more.]

Title:  The Girl on the Train

Author: Paula Hawkins

Year: 2015

Genre: Thriller/Fiction

Setting: London/suburbs

Characters: Rachel (main character, the girl on the train), Tom (Rachel's ex-husband), Anna (Tom's new wife), Megan (the wife in #15), Scott (the husband in #15), Abdic (the therapist), Cathy (Rachel's housemate)

Plot: Rachel and Tom were happily married until Rachel found out she couldn't have any children. She turned to alcohol, and Tom turned to Anna, who he chose over her. Rachel's drinking only grew worse after divorcing and moving out, and she lost her job. She can only focus on Tom, leaving late-night phone calls, messages, even coming into the house uninvited and holding Tom and Anna's baby. She keeps up the pretense of having a job to avoid questions from her housemate, Cathy. Every day Rachel rides the train into London, and every day she passes the house in which she and Tom used to live. She focuses on a house several doors down from her old home where a couple, Jess and Jason, she's named them, are often outside. She builds a world for them like the one she's lost, and when she sees Jess kissing another man one morning, the world she's made for them begins to crack. Then Jess shows up in the paper as Megan, a missing woman, the next morning, and Rachel is sure it has something to do with the new man she saw from the train. But Rachel is an alcoholic, and obsessed with her ex-husband's life, which makes her a very unreliable witness, especially when she figures out that she was on their street, black-out drunk, the night Megan disappeared. 

Verdict: [plot spoiler?] I admit I'm not the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to solving thrillers, so I can't say I knew from the start or even from the middle who did what. I'd like to think I grasped it a little ahead of the pack, but probably not. Oh well, such is life. Perhaps that makes it a good book? I did read it in one sitting, which I did not expect. I found some of the characters a little matte, like Megan and Scott, but Anna surprised me a little bit at the end; it almost would've been more interesting if she had surprised me more. It was good, it was a page turner, but I think it could have been better. If someone wanted something a step up from this, both in characterization and in thrill, I would point to Broken Monsters. 6.5/10