Most
suspense thrillers have the reader following the P.O.V. of the killer or victim
or investigators of the crime (disappearance, murder, attacks, etc.). This
novel is unique in that the story is told by a barely functioning alcoholic girl
who is trying to figure out what to do with her life, if she should even try to
dry out, but who happens to see something that only in her every day commute
and imaginings on a train is out of the ordinary. Consequently, it is this
couple of minutes that puts her in the side lines of a criminal mystery and by
her own sheer will she weaves in and out of the mystery of what happened to the
girl she had been watching from the train. The reader gets to try to figure out
what happened based on the little access that's available to this character
through her insertion into the investigation (and you kinda want to smack her
half the time for running headlong into it), watching the media, and her
drunken memories and imaginings.
The thing
I appreciated about this novel is it toggles between three women telling you
bits of the story- always their morning and their evenings of various days. All
three women are very different and at different places in life but are all
connected by one street of houses near the train tracks. The author has a great
talent for her characters and I think the breaks between them, for me at least,
was brilliant because if the story was solely told by one I would have issues
wanting to finish the story.
I started the novel with the general assumption that the focus and
end goal is more of the “whodunit” and unraveling the mystery with “the girl on
the train” and her half hazard investigation into what happened to Megan.
However, having finished reading this novel I feel like the main goal is not
even the story of what happened to Megan but how to redeem the main story
teller- the girl on the train- Rachel. If I were to reread this novel a second
time knowing this, I think I would read the book completely different and
potentially try to enjoy or connect with the characters more. As it was, it was
difficult for me to do that due to personality flaws that are turnoffs to me on
a personal level, especially the uber narcissistic personalities. With that in
mind, the author did a great job with her novel and creating a uniquely plotted
out story with characters you have an emotional response to while getting into
the action of the story.
As an avid reader who likes to think who she might recommend books
to, I would definitely recommend this book (as so many others already do) to
friends who enjoyed Gillian Flynn’s Gone
Girl (as well as her other novels) and/or Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You.
