The Girl on the Train Review

Title: The Girl on the Train

Author: Paula Hawkins

Pages: 323

Publisher: Riverhead Books

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐








Synopsis: Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. 'Jess and Jason', she calls them. Their life - as she sees it - is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she's only watched from afar. Now they'll see; she's much more than just the girl on the train...

My Thoughts: I was not the biggest fan of this book. I had high hopes going into it because I had heard some good reviews for it and it was a Goodreads Choice Award winner a couple of years ago, but I ended up being disappointed. This was my first try at a thriller, so I thought we would be following a police case and solving a mystery. This book was not that. In my opinion, it did not focus on the murder enough. I felt like this book was mostly a drama between a husband, his wife, and his ex-wife with a side of murder. Our main narrator, Rachel, was very unreliable which is suppose to be a part of the story, but after a while I just got annoyed with listening to an alcoholic trying to remember one scene from a night she was black-out drunk. This is probably because I do not drink myself, nor do I hangout with people that drink very often, so I am not used to the world of drinking and affairs, so I could be very biased in my opinion. I think that I would have enjoyed this book much more if I had felt like we were following a police case and solving a mystery instead of getting tied up in so much of the character's personal lives. 

However, I did enjoy the actual writing of the book. I liked that Paula Hawkins showed us different perspectives of the people involved in the crime, that did make it more interesting to read. I also did not see the final resolution to the crime coming at all. I never had an inkling to who the killer was, so the ending totally caught me off guard and shocked me. I do commend her for that. The parts of the story that were more primarily focused on the murder, I really enjoyed and thought that Hawkins did a great job with, which is why I stayed with a 3 star rating. 

If you read this book, please leave a comment down below and let me know what you thought of it. I would love to hear your opinion! Thank you so much for reading!