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    The Girl on the Train
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    The Girl on the Train
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    The Girl on the Train
    Ebook115 pages1 hour

    The Girl on the Train

    By Paula Hawkins, Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Adapted from Paula Hawkins' novel - an international phenomenon selling over twenty million copies worldwide - this gripping new play will keep you guessing until the final moment.

    Rachel Watson longs for a different life. Her only escape is the perfect couple she watches through the train window every day, happy and in love. Or so it appears.

    When Rachel learns that the woman she's been secretly watching has suddenly disappeared, she finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a thrilling mystery in which she will face bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOberon Books
    Release dateMay 12, 2018
    ISBN9781786825131
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Girl on the Train

    3.5/5

    5,639 ratings537 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      My 15 year old daughter gave me this book as a Christmas present. She is not a big reader, so I think she probably just picked out whatever had the most hype. I liked the way the story started out with us thinking the narrator was pretty normal, and then turning everything on its head when details of her life come out. By the end of the book, I didn't really care for any of the characters. They all have secrets they are keeping. The point of view changes between the women in the story. The time line also changes. I really had to pay attention to each chapter heading to make sure I understood who was narrating and what year it was. I thought the story was pretty good. I read this pretty quickly. When reading, just go along where the story take you and you will enjoy yourself.
    • 5/5
      I listened to the audio book version of The Girl on the Train. The story really came alive through the narrator. I enjoyed the POVs the story was told from, and the author did a great job making unlikable characters likable. I definitely recommend this audio book!
    • 3/5
      3.5 Stars. I'd give the last 60 pages 4 stars. I didn't really like any of the characters and thought they all were capable of murder. It was a page turner with some unexpected twists. I'd certainly recommend it to those that like mysteries.
    • 4/5
      Very enjoyable book. Rachel watches a couple everyday as she sees them on their terrace and she is on the commuter train. Soon the woman is missing and ends up murdered. Rachel, who drinks to the point of blacking out, can't remember different times in her life. Her ex-husband lives down the road from the couple. Rachel keeps bugging her ex and his new wife and child. She soon gets involved with the couple's lives and the murder investigation and not in a good way. This book had lots of twists and turns and kept me guessing what happened and who killed Megan. It was not who I thought it would be and it was really interesting what all came to light. I kept trying to guess what really happened. I was rooting for Rachel to stop drinking and to get her life together but I was also sad for her that she just couldn't leave her ex-husband alone. It was a little confusing with the story jumping around with the dates. I just gave up paying attention to the dates because I could tell while reading what was going on where we were at in the story. I highly recommend this book.
    • 3/5
      I listened to the audio version. I'm an older gay man and not particularly politically correct, but the first 250 pages of this book seem to be about how horrible women can be to each other, then the last 50 pages about how horrible straight men can be to women. And the whole thing is about how awful people in London are to each other all the time, and how alienating and depressing it can be (can someone please recommend a novel to me that takes place in London where people are happy and nice to each other sometimes?). As usual, the whole thing pivots on the issues of monogamy and childbearing. The writing is very good, and the narration very talented- couldn't stop listening to it, even though I had no sympathy for a single character (except maybe Kamal or Linda, who is not allowed much of a role). Recommended as a quick read or listen, but not an ounce of joy or enlightenment.
    • 5/5
      This is a hard book to rate. The POV changes every chapter and within each chapter is different dates that are separated between the morning events and the evening events. I sometimes found myself having to flip back and forth between POVs and dates to try and figure out the mystery. I think the story is very well written and the way the dates and POVs are staggered, I found myself just needing to know MORE. I finished the book in about a day and a half (would have been less than that if it wasn't for that blasted thing called work) and once I got towards the end of the book I couldn't put it down because things were happening so quickly. My initial reaction was five stars, but the more I think back on it, I go back and forth between four and five stars. Because of that I will just go to the middle and give this 4.5 stars, which is still a stellar rating nonetheless


      Full review and more at SBSR Book Blog
    • 2/5
      Marvelous descriptive prose detailing the thoughts and feelings of one woman on a train. The challenge in reading this book was to untangle memory from imagination and keeping track of whether the main character is in the present, having a flashback, or hallucinating.
    • 4/5
      I had a hard time getting into this book and put it aside for a few days before trying again. Once I got a few chapters in, I was hooked.

      The story is told from the perspective of 3 characters. Rachel is the Girl on the Train. She is an alcoholic who is divorced and living with a girl from school. She often experiences blackouts. She travels to London every day for work and passes by her old house. She watches her house, where her ex-husband has remarried and has a child, as well as the house down the road. She imagines the couple who she names, in a happy life.

      Emma, the second narrator is the new wife. She does not like that Rachel calls the house and walks by. She wants Tom to call the police and have a restraining order against Rachel. She is worried for their child.

      Megan, the third narrator. This is the woman who Rachel watches from the train. Her life is not as idyllic as Rachel imagines it to be. When Megan goes missing, Rachel insinuates herself into the life of Scott, Megan's husband and the investigation of Megan's disappearance.

      A great suspenseful story of a disappearance and murder. Often compared to Gone Girl, but I think this was a much better book that I really enjoyed.
    • 3/5
      This book has been compared to "Gone Girl" but I found that while the characters were dysfunctional and quite repulsive, "The Girl on the Train" lacked the complexity and chilling suspense that "Gone Girl" had. Told from three women's perspective i found the plot was a bit predictable and it was easy to work out who the murderer was. Overall, an okay read, but don't be expecting another "Gone Girl".
    • 3/5
      Read this in mostly one sitting just to be rid of it. Drunk people, angry people, unfaithful people and psychopaths. It's a depressing mess of a story where I worked out who the killer was less than half way through simply because we'd met all the characters by then and there were no other solutions for Megan's mystery lover except the policeman. Don't get me wrong, I read a book once where it WAS the bloody policeman. That was really terrible.

      I guess it could have been worse but it wasn't any good.
    • 2/5
      Depressing, unlikeable characters. Fairly suspenseful.
    • 3/5
      The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins. Unsure how I feel about this book. It’s well thought out, decently written, and I can see why it’s had recognition. My personal feelings, however, are I would have preferred this thriller written in third person. First person with multiple viewpoints pulls me out of a story (it’s told by three women) and I wasn’t sure they were distinguishable enough. I guessed the outcome a little over half way through the book, and, though I don’t believe characters should be perfect, that flawed people make for a more interesting read, I found every person in the book thoroughly unlikable so I struggled to care about any of them, and kept searching for more redeeming features. Well plotted and an easy read despite this, but I’m left feeling ambiguous. I want to watch the film, though, to see how they handled the material.
    • 4/5
      All I can say is WOW! I wasn't originally planning on reading this book when it came out because all I read with the description was "another cliche Gone Girl type novel." Well, it was (in fact, Amazon recommended Gone Girl when I finished this book on my Kindle), but it was a very well-written book. I read it fairly quickly, and I still felt like it wasn't fast enough.

      Once you have read several psychological thrillers, they all tend to become similar. Yet, they are still a favorite of mine. I love the heart racing feeling I get when I'm about to find out something new. I love trying to figure out the ending, reading the clues the author is leaving for us, if only you are careful enough to look. To be truthful, I have loved doing this since I read The Catcher in the Rye 10 years ago, it is just a lot more fun with a psychological thriller than a classic American novel.

      My rating is based on the fact that this book actually kept me guessing, that I was hooked from page 2, and that I felt like it wasn't just another cliche book, and actually had a lot of depth and thought put into it. I hesitate to rate if five stars, because something in me just doesn't feel like it was that good, but I also do not know what would make it worth the five star review. Read on if you have already read the book and/or you don't mind potential spoilers.

      ***spoilers below this line***
      I was able to figure out pretty early on that certain character traits about Rachel just didn't add up. For example, she was supposedly a violent drunk, but after we meet her, she seems to only get injured while drunk. Red flag number one. Also, the "unreliable witness" thing was pretty played up, so I knew that some of the details she was walking through with herself had to be true, if slightly altered.

      About halfway through the book, I knew it was someone in *that* house who had committed the crime. I just couldn't figure out if it was angry man or jealous wife. I was actually hoping for the jealous wife, I don't know why. I just thought it would be a nice full-circle type ending to the relationship between Anna and Rachel. But then, I was also hoping for angry man because that would exonerate Rachel's past, and admittedly I was in love with her.

      It was sort of a disappointment to me to realize so early on that it was obviously neither Scott nor Kamal who committed the crime. Neither of them fit the bill, Scott was angry, but we knew Scott was innocent if for no other reason than that would make a horrible story for Rachel to narrate. I almost wish there had been more detail of Rachel and Scott, Rachel and Kamal, flashbacks to Rachel and Tom, something that brought us into Rachel's mind when she was with these three men, something that allows the reader to really feel what she is feeling when she is with them, not just what she is remembering later. I realize that is sort of the point of the book, I mean the woman drinks gin and tonic from a can.

      At the end of the day, I think that Hawkins did a great job crafting this story, and I imagine there are so many details that got scrapped and so much more that the author knew than what made it into the story. I felt like I was watching these people from the train, from the underpass, from wherever, trying to catch a glimpse of their true selves. And they were all just characters in a novel whose stories are over now.
    • 3/5
      It is the debut novel by author Paula Hawkins .The story revolves around the lives of three women: Rachel, Anna and Megan.The protagonist, Rachel, is in her early 30s and she is Jobless•Homeless •Alcoholic•Divorced. Even after being jobless, she takes the 8:04 train to the city everyday. The train stops at same signal, from where she can see the house of a couple in her old neighbourhood. She idealises this couple (christened as Jess and Jason) and imagines their life. Her fantasy goes haywire when Jess goes missing.“To have my hopes raised and dashed again, it’s like cold steel twisting inside my gut”.~ Paula Hawkins, The girl on the train.That’s what I felt while reading the first few chapters of the book. If you are someone who likes fast paced novels then you will need a lot of patience to read this as it will pickup the pace only after you are halfway through the book. In the beginning, it will be a bit confusing too and will have to go back to previous pages but once into the book, it will be simply irresistible. The first person narration by the three female characters and their multiple view points on the same scenario makes it quite interesting. The plot is intelligently written with lots of twists and an end that is totally unpredictable.
    • 5/5
      The book club that I am a member of chose this book to read for the month of October. I was hesitant. It really isn't my preferred genera. Initially I had started the book, couldn't get passed the first chapter, and was dreading reading it. Then one day I picked it up and decided to give it another go. I am THRILLED that I gave it another try! Once I gave it a proper shot, the characters fell into place and I was quickly swept up into the story. Normally I am able to figure out where the book is taking me, but in this instance I didn't get it sorted out until just before the end. The author does a very good job at keeping the reader guessing and engaged in the entire story line. I read through the book all in one night, I just could not set it down. I am very happy that I got over myself and picked it up again, I would have missed out on a wonderful story and author had I not.
    • 4/5
      wow- talk abt a book hangover - I've got one from staying up too late reading this, and I am also not quite ready yet
      to move on to another story while these characters are still so alive in my mind - why ?

      I think this provides a stinging female narrative perspective, similar to under the volcano, yet cloaked in genre tropes to make the medicine go down

      the other story it reminded me of a bit was Roffey's white woman on the green bicycle.








    • 5/5
      I loved this book. It's an "unreliable witness" psychological thriller that will keep you guessing the whole way through. It switches between first-person narrative of three of the main characters, keeping things bubbling along nicely. Thoroughly enjoyable.
    • 3/5
      90% of this is really good. The last 10% is comparatively a let down.
    • 3/5
      I saw the movie before I watched the book, so I had that perspective before I read the book. Usually, I do it the opposite way. I thought the movie was pretty faithful to the book. There was some good and some bad in the novel. I thought the plot was fairly intricate. I also liked the shifting perspectives and the unreliable narrator in Rachel. It made the mystery aspect of it better.The biggest problem in the novel was characterization. Specifically, none of the three female viewpoint characters was remotely likeable. I don’t know which was one more loathsome. For a while I was thinking it was Rachel, but I think Anna was ultimately even less likeable. And the male characters weren’t much better. Scott was a creep as was Anna’s husband was even worse. The only redeemable character was the psychiatrist. So, when bad things happened to these characters, it was hard to sympathize with any of them. I thought this novel could have been so much more, but without good characters, it just wasn’t all that captivating.Carl Alves – author of Battle of the Soul
    • 4/5
      It's very much like the movie, which kinda spoils it a bit, but it's still a good read getting the full story. If you're into thrillers, this is another one of those which, like "Gone Girl" or "The Couple Next Door," is one of the newer must-reads in the genre. For better or worse, they're kinda shaping the newest crop of bestsellers in a big way, which is rather interesting to see unfold as well. So, it's worth the time on multiple fronts.
    • 4/5
      This book is great. It is definitely a page turner. I recommend it for fans of Gillian Flynn.
    • 4/5
      I know I’m a bit late to this book. Honestly, I wasn’t motivated to read it until I saw the preview for the film adaptation, which involves Emily Blunt (yes!) and the woman who played Cora in “Music and Lyrics By,” that Hugh Grant / Drew Barrymore film that no one saw but that I will watch whenever it is on. I knew that involved a possibly unreliable narrator, but that was about it.

      Maybe minor spoilers below …

      Still here? Okay. I’m glad that I picked it up. Started it this morning, finished it this evening. I haven’t let it set, so it’s possible my opinion might change, but I liked it. I knew there was some sort of twist, and I did actually pick up on what it might be fairly early on in the Megan chapters. But there was enough misdirection that made sense that I wasn’t 100% certain until a few chapters before it was explicitly spelled out.

      I also liked that the only perspective chapters we get are from three women, two of whom are viewing the same actions through very different lenses. I thought the writing was mostly good – certainly good enough to keep me interested to the point that I read it at the gym, walking to and from work today, and then tonight after dinner. If you’re looking for a quick-reading thriller, I think this is a good choice.
    • 3/5
      ''One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.''

      When I started The Girl On The Train, I had no expectations at all. I had read some reviews, but I've learned my lesson. I try to approach hyped books with indifference, because in 8 cases out of 10, I end up hugely disappointed. It didn't happen with this one.

      Let me admit that one of the first things I noticed was the fact that Hawkins makes fun of the ''hands-around- Starbucks'' culture that seems to be the hype of our times. It was a big plus in my book. Superficial? Perhaps, but one needs to be honest.

      Now, the characters. Allow me to enter the state of rant here. (Don't worry, it's going to be low on the Richter scale, I promise.) I don't care much whether a book is loaded with unsympathetic
      characters or not. Where thrillers are concerned, I don't care whether I connect to them. (I'd be worried if I did). For various reasons. First, I don't want to marry the characters, I want to read about them. Then, I believe that they are much more realistic. The world is full of ''unsympathetic'' people, we're not in Paradise. After all, I remember something that the great Ian McShane has said: ''We don't call them evil characters any longer, thank you, we call them complex individuals.'' So, as long as they're not cut-out villains, I am fine with them. And it is crime fiction we're talking about.

      This book is choke-full of people that are anything but sympathetic. And it's okay. However, with one exception, the rest are disturbed, highly problematic individuals. Rachel is the unreliable narrator, and as such, she works wonders, because there were many instances where I simply couldn't believe the slightest thing she said. In my opinion, she is a really memorable character. Her mind is full of jammed memories, questions and thoughts, and she contradicts herself all too often.

      And this brings me to the last thing I want to focus on. The writing. I appreciated the fact that Hawkins uses a clear, sharp language each time we enter the thoughts of a POV character. There are no frivolities in those inner monologues, the prose is eerie, almost haunting in parts. BUT. There is a significant BUT. The dialogue isn't on the same level, in my opinion. I wanted it to be equally sharp and minimalistic. Instead, there are many occassions where a character talks to the point of exhaustion, in a language that is uninspired, almost wooden. When someone would hesitate, you'd read examples like these: ''I just...just wanted to help'' or ''I remember something...something that...'', etc. It may work in the context of the oral language, but it becomes really annoying in its written presentation. Especially, when it is repeated again and again.

      So, a thriller is a thriller. It it makes me care for the completion of the story, for the fate of the characters, then I consider it succesful. Is The Girl on the Train a masterpiece? Certainly not. Is it interesting? Absolutely. I don't know if the hype is justified, but I know that I had fun reading it.

    • 4/5
      If you need to root for some very nice mild character in order to maintain interest in the story, this book is not for you. If you like to first wonder about what is inside this person or that one (likeable or not) and then sift through the layers to see what, if anything, lies beneath the facade - you will enjoy this terrific mystery that takes quite the sudden turn. Excellent read.
    • 5/5
      Good

      I had to read it twice, but overall a pretty good book. Mysterious, you don't really see the end turning out as it does.
    • 4/5
      Some reviews are saying this book is the next Gone Girl. I liked this one better. Yes the characters are flawed people, but I didn't find them nearly as despicable as Gone Girl's.

      I found The Girl on the Train to be twisty, thought provoking, and a fun slightly disturbing read. If you like psychological thrillers you'll enjoy it.
    • 4/5
      It was an exciting read, though from time to time I got angry about 'How alcoholism can destroy whole families and lives'. The story is told from the point of view of three women. Rachel, extremely alcoholic, who has some 'film cracks', what had happened, Anna,who Rachel's ex-husband has fallen asleep, as the two other women and as a way out only the handle to the bottle and Megan, the victim, the one sex addicted and on the other hand carries a dark past. Rachel tries to expose the murder of Megan, puts herself in danger and no longer knows who she can trust.
    • 5/5
      This is a very curious book. As others have noted, it is compelling, it does hold the readers interest, it has some excellent plot twists, and the author is able to keep the reader in suspense right up to the end. For me, the curious aspect is the fact that this has to be the first novel I've ever read where I enjoyed the book and had zero sympathy for ANY of the principal, secondary, or minor characters, The three main narrators - Rachel, Megan, and Annna - are a chronic drunk, a drifter/seducer, and a woman who specializes in stealing husbands. The three main secondary characters - Tom, Scott and Kamal - two husbands and a psychiatrist - a cheater with an aura of violence, an obsessive, controlling individual prone to violence, and a physician who violates the rules of patient/physician interaction and can't keep his pants zipped. Then there are the minor characters like Cathy - an enabler...and so on. If you like mysteries I think you will find this book to your liking. Again, as others have noted, I hope this is the first of a series of good mysteries from this author.
    • 4/5
      Great premise and wonderful character transformation, but slow beginning.
    • 3/5
      I’m left feeling disappointed after reading The Girl on the Train. So much hype and comparisons to Gone Girl (in fact it made me realized I liked Gone Girl more than I originally did and caused me to bump it up star), but it just falls flat to me. All the characters are unreliable messes. The biggest mess being Rachel. I just can’t buy that someone that black out drunk would insert herself in a police investigation just because it involves people she likes to look at from the train. She didn’t remember anything, when she does start to remember it’s all confusing and jumbled up so to me anything she remembers isn’t going to be fully accurate, but she becomes so sure of herself? HOW? Megan and Scott were the sideshow act, they were by far the most interesting part of the story and I wished more of the book focused on them, especially Megan & her affair (could still go into it without letting the reader in on who it was with). Tom & Anna were obviously shady mid-way through the book, to me it became okay it’s one of them who killed Megan, the more obvious choice being Anna (but that’s too obvious).2.5/5

      I did still enjoy reading the book overall, the plot was interesting, but felt bored with the ending and thought the characters were all very similar to each other and could use more depth. Taking the hype out of the picture it’s a decent mystery novel and good start to Paula Hawkins' fiction career.