Reviews with content warning for Infertility - The Girl on the Train

I honestly really hated this book, and that really surprises me because of how popular this book was for a while. The writing style was boring, the characters were revolting and the mystery was a yawn. Nothing made me want to keep readying besides just the annoyance of not finishing a book you’ve dumped time into already. The only emotions this book evoked for me was disgust… and not in a good way.

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trinloyd's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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samcsmith's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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aisclaradm's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A really good thriller that had me trying to piece information together right from the very beginning. It was so fun to read a book with such unreliable narrators, because it allowed you to come up with so many different theories. Ultimately, everything tied up really well and I found the plotline and reveals made a lot of sense.

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neverlandpages4's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I was excited to read this because it’s what inspired many of the more recent thrillers like “The Woman in the Window” and “The Woman in Cabin 10” and the hundreds of other thrillers that have “woman” in the title. Unfortunately, this was one of the least thrilling and one of the least suspenseful books I’ve ever read.

I should’ve known I wouldn’t like this because one of my least favorite tropes in thrillers is the alcoholic unreliable narrator. I quickly get tired and annoyed with the amount of times that drinking is mentioned and the main character constantly being confusing about the details of what might’ve or might’ve not happened.

I was also really confused by the timeline. We follow 2 or 3 timelines that are leading up to each other but at the same time, they constantly switch to a random time and I just couldn’t keep track of it.

Also, there’s the matter of the racist stereotypes and the wrong portrayal of Muslim characters.

Part of me finds it hard to believe that this is the book that a lot of people were raving about years ago when it first came out. Same with the movie (which I won’t be watching now). It felt so mundane and predictable and not unique. If I hadn’t written my thoughts on the book as I was reading it, I wouldn’t have been able to write a review because I honestly remember nothing.

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