| Publisher | Doubleday |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 15 January 2015 |
| ISBN-10 | 0857522310 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0857522313 |
| Format | hardcover |
| Pages | 320 |
| Price | £ 12.99 |
The Girl on the Train
by
Rachel Watson is the archetypal unreliable witness – but she knows something’s not right with the seemingly perfect young couple she spies from the train window every day
Review
Rachel Watson’s life is a mess. Her marriage is over, her ex-husband Tom has moved another woman into their house, she’s lodging with a friend – and she has a serious drink problem. She spends her daily commute staring out of the train window and fantasising about the people she sees.
The basic premise of the book attracted me – a woman on a train, which stops at the same signal every day, gazing into people’s houses and building stories of their lives. Rachel is particularly fixated on Jess and Jason – who turn out to be called Megan and Scott.
Megan goes missing and Rachel becomes the archetypal unreliable witness. Drinking has wiped out parts of her memory, including the night where she returns home blood-stained and with a cut on her head. She knows she’s seen Megan kissing another man in her back garden, though.
The Girl on the Train’s main problem is that, like the train stopping at signals, it never picks up any speed. Sections are told from the points of view of Rachel, Megan and Anna (Tom’s new wife) and this makes the book seem fragmented. Even more confusing are the datelines – I was constantly skimming back to work out where we were in the timeline. This became a major annoyance once the hunt for Megan was on. And I found the locations hard to get a handle on. Rachel’s journey appears to be into London from a small town some distance out. But the Witney that’s frequently mentioned doesn’t seem to be the one in Oxfordshire … If you’re going to invent places, at least check the map!
And of course we have Gone Girl to curse for the current craze for unreliable narrators with things to hide. Your views on this book might well depend how much patience you have for that, and also for a fairly unlikeable cast.
Paula Hawkins is clearly a decent writer, and at several points really builds up a sense of menace. But in the end, despite the fact I liked the idea a lot, I couldn’t raise much enthusiasm for all these dull middle-class women, seedy blokes and their dreary love lives and faintly sordid secrets.
The basic premise of the book attracted me – a woman on a train, which stops at the same signal every day, gazing into people’s houses and building stories of their lives. Rachel is particularly fixated on Jess and Jason – who turn out to be called Megan and Scott.
Megan goes missing and Rachel becomes the archetypal unreliable witness. Drinking has wiped out parts of her memory, including the night where she returns home blood-stained and with a cut on her head. She knows she’s seen Megan kissing another man in her back garden, though.
The Girl on the Train’s main problem is that, like the train stopping at signals, it never picks up any speed. Sections are told from the points of view of Rachel, Megan and Anna (Tom’s new wife) and this makes the book seem fragmented. Even more confusing are the datelines – I was constantly skimming back to work out where we were in the timeline. This became a major annoyance once the hunt for Megan was on. And I found the locations hard to get a handle on. Rachel’s journey appears to be into London from a small town some distance out. But the Witney that’s frequently mentioned doesn’t seem to be the one in Oxfordshire … If you’re going to invent places, at least check the map!
And of course we have Gone Girl to curse for the current craze for unreliable narrators with things to hide. Your views on this book might well depend how much patience you have for that, and also for a fairly unlikeable cast.
Paula Hawkins is clearly a decent writer, and at several points really builds up a sense of menace. But in the end, despite the fact I liked the idea a lot, I couldn’t raise much enthusiasm for all these dull middle-class women, seedy blokes and their dreary love lives and faintly sordid secrets.
Reviewed 07 January 2015 by Sharon Wheeler
