Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Chapter 24: A Mystery or Thriller



The Girl On the Train, Paula Hawkins

I was hesitant to start this one because I've been burned by Girl books (see previous post about my The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo surprise). I also really, really hated Gone Girl. Why does Gillian Flynn hate romance so much? I hated every character of every one of her books, which probably means they are good books if I am still so emotional about them. But, anyway, I gave another Girl book a try. It will be hard not to fill my review with a bunch of cliches, but I will do my best.

My guess is that published reviews include words like taut, tense, and shocking. That's a little grandiose for this novel, but it doesn't miss the mark by too much. The pace manages to move quickly enough to build tension while also detailing boring daily events. It has a nice upward curve toward the final conflict, with little crests along the way. At times it is written with the frenetic energy of an obsessed alcoholic on a bender. At others, the calm deliberation of the same alcoholic during a brief period of sobriety. And scattered throughout these journals are the perspective of the assumed victim and The Other Woman.

Rachel is the obsessed, out-of-control alcoholic who witnesses something from the train. When she reads news that a woman she has seen through that window for years has disappeared, her mission becomes to help solve the case. The problem is, her ex-husband and his new wife live a few doors down and they do not have an amicable relationship. These three women's lives get tangled up with the two husbands, past and present lovers, and secrets that everyone hides. (Trigger warning- infertility and infant death play major roles in this book.) Normally I don't like switching of narrators and time too much, but even ignoring the dates, I was able to keep a good grasp on where and when I was reading.

As I was reading, I kept trying to decide if it would be possible to make into a movie. The whole thing feels very Hitchcock. I knew there was a big twist that I wasn't supposed to see coming, so I prepared for everything. I was not floored by the revelation. Not even all that surprised. But it is still a good twist. I stayed up late to finish it and find out just what the heck happened to everyone. A little bit of Hitchcock trivia for you- the phrase "this is where I came in" referred to movies until Psycho was released. Films ran on a loop with no starting time. So you paid for your seat and walked in somewhere in the plot and left when you got back to that point. Hitchcock changed all that because it was so important to him that every detail of Psycho be seen from beginning to end. He ordered no admissions after the opening credits and changed the way we watch movies forever.

So, back to Train. It plays very heavily on the unreliable narrator thing. Rachel is very close to the bottom of a downward spiral and often admits that her memory is full of holes. The police question her involvement and do not take her seriously. Her peers vacillate  between pity and disgust for her. She makes one bad decision after another. Yet you cannot help but feel that some part of her drive is genuine. Near the end, one of the leading women says, "There's nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion." That sums the whole novel up quite nicely.

I enjoyed this one and will gladly pass it on to another reader. It won't stay on my shelf for long and I probably won't read it again. But it was a fun ride, so I give it three Marias.


1 comment:

  1. I was told it was a "don't waste your time" but I read it anyway and liked it!!!

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