Eva Pace, Arts Editor
@espcourant
“I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts.” ― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train
Recently turned into film, The Girl on the Train has been accredited with awards including New York Times Best-Seller and Goodreads Choice Awards Best Mystery & Thriller. These praises are not in vain, as the novel is truly an expansion of a simple murder mystery into an innovative psychological whirlwind.
The novel starts off with a mid-aged woman named Rachel. Having been divorced for a year from the love of her life, she continues to drown her emotional pain with alcohol while living in her friend’s apartment. Instead of going to her day-to-day job (which she was fired from), she simply takes the train to and from New York City every day, doodling in her sketchbook while remaining keenly observant of her surroundings.
One of those families she observes is that of beauty-queen Megan. Each day she watches her, and each day Rachel becomes more and more obsessed with the life that Megan has; the life Rachel never did. But when she notices a new man on the patio, a man who she knows isn’t Megan’s husband, Rachel becomes distressed and reminded of her own ex-husband’s cheating past.
When Megan suddenly disappears, Rachel goes to the police with evidence that Megan was cheating. Little does she know that soon after, she would become a prime suspect of the death of a woman she’d never met.
Some final thoughts…
**SPOILER WARNING!**
- I loved how the novel kept me on my toes in questioning who it was that truly killed Megan. Was it the ginger man on the train? Was it really Rachel? Was it the psychiatrist? This is one of the few murder-mysteries where I feel I was truly shocked at the outcome of the case.
- I hate Tom. That’s really all there is to say about that.
- The novel was really beautifully written. Kudos to Paula Hawkins for making Rachel’s mental journey so interesting and incorporating so many significant details into determining the final suspect.
- I was honestly really hoping that Rachel, Megan, and Anna would team up together and go all “John Tucker Must Die” on Tom. Pretty disappointed that never happened.
★★★★★
