The Girl on the Train was recommended to me when I was struggling to decide what my holiday read would be. For years I used to get the train to work and spent a lot of that time looking into people's back gardens as we chugged by. A story about the drama that unfolds after seeing something untoward from the train window seemed like something I could enjoy! The synopsis intrigued me so I was sold!Rachel is an alcoholic, unemployed, divorcee. Taking the train to 'work' every day to keep up the pretence that she is employed and avoid that discussion with her housemate. It is on one of these journeys that Rachel becomes more involved than she could have anticipated in the lives of a couple she has never met before. Police questioning, an angry ex-husband and a stranger's affection follow. Along with more wine. Well it is a lot to cope with.
This book is billed as a page-turning thriller and has been widely compared with 'Gone Girl'. The only similarity I can see would be the genre. The story itself bares no resemblance. And aside from the fact that Gone Girl is also told from several different narratives the writing styles aren't similar either.
I had high hopes for this book but unfortunately it didn't quite match up to them, I found the writing style to be clumsy and Hawkins often relied on the reader to make a leap in judgement as characters did unexplainable things or reacted unrealistically. I did stick with the book as the plot was good, but unfortunately I saw the twist coming from quite a way.
The Girl on the Train is a really easy read and has an interesting plot which gets you thinking and questioning your judgement, If you're not too fussy about writing styles then it might be worth a go, but for me this was a hard one to ignore.
