Goodreads Book Review: The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Paula Hawkins' novel The Girl on the Train has been getting a lot of comparisons to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. It's a mystery/thriller narrated from multiple perspectives, provides insight into troubled marriages and characters who aren't who they seem, and has been adapted into a film to come out this October. But whereas Gone Girl's twistedness satisfied on multiple levels, The Girl on the Train for me, while immensely readable, never really rose above the level of beach-read thriller. I'd give it three-and-a-half stars, but since Goodreads doesn't allow for half-stars, I'm rounding down to 3.

The premise of The Girl on the Train is intriguing, and the narrative direction Hawkins takes was ambitious. The novel shifts narration between three different characters and from different time frames. It opens from the perspective of Rachel, the "girl on the train." Here is where Hawkins makes use of the unreliable narration that Flynn used in Gone Girl. Rachel is a young woman who takes a train to and from London every day. As she rides the train, it stops by a house in the neighborhood where she used to live, and Rachel watches the residents: a young, attractive couple who often spend time in their yard or on their patio. She begins fantasizing about their lives and even names them: "Jess" and "Jason." But one day "Jess" (who is actually named Megan) disappears, and Rachel realizes how little she actually knew about her life.

Rachel goes to the police to provide witness to events she saw unfolding in Megan's yard, but as we soon learn, she is not the most reliable witness or narrator: she is an alcoholic prone to blackouts. As the story unfolds, we learn more about Megan and how her path intersected with that of Rachel, her ex-husband, and his new family. And we learn about the secrets that kept in all their lives.

The contrast between fantasy and reality and the drive to live vicariously through other people's lives are interesting themes but ones that I didn't think the novel took far enough. Rachel creates voyeuristic fantasies about "Jess" and "Jason" as a distraction from her pain and loneliness as a recent divorcee, but these fantasies are interrupted early on in the novel when Jess/Megan disappears. As in Gone Girl, characters' lives are built upon layers of secrets and lies, and nothing is as it seems, but this also didn't seem to be explored in as much depth as it could have been.

The train is clearly central to the story, and yet it's symbolism was yet another thing that didn't seem fully explored. Rachel's train rides are the center of her day, providing predictability to a life that has otherwise unraveled. In contrast, for Megan the train she lives so close to reflects her restlessness and yearning for escape. I wish Hawkins would have run with these themes a bit more.

The narrative structure of the novel is one element that did work for me. It's always a risk for authors to use multiple narrators, but each narrator (Rachel, Megan, and Rachel's ex-husband's new wife, Anna) has her own distinct voice, and the pieces of the story come together as new details and perspectives unfold.

In both Rachel and Megan, Hawkins has created characters who, while deeply flawed and not exactly "likable," were complex, layered and compelling. Equally compelling is Kamal, Megan's therapist and an early suspect. A man with a troubled past, Kamal exhibits both deep compassion and a concerning lack of boundaries. Anna, on the other hand, is both unlikable (coming across as smug and self-satisfied in her new life) and flat. And the other main male characters, Rachel's ex-husband, Tom and Megan's husband, Scott, are portrayed as stereotypically controlling and domineering, but there is little exploration of what's behind these traits.

The Girl on the Train is definitely a page-turner, but the promising premise wasn't fully realized for me.




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