A review by cheraquili
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

2.0

 

"Twice a day, I am offered a view into other lives, just for a moment. There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home."

2/5 stars

Another unpopular opinion of mine regarding a very popular thriller book...
I think that this book has made it clear that I really despise domestic thrillers, especially ones that have only a single twist at the end. In fact, although I loved several aspects, like the author's writing and the narrator's thought process, this book put me in the biggest reading slump. Contrastingly, I also thought that the audiobook was incredibly fantastic.

I wait for the memory to come. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it’s there in front of my eyes in seconds. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all.

Despite enjoying the book's construction and idea, I detested both the execution and development. Additionally, although I liked how the narrator's mind worked (for instance, how she uses the names she invented for Scott and Megan to illustrate her assumptions of how things occurred), there was not a single character who I liked. Furthermore, I was not shocked by the ending, and I found it to be quite unsatisfying.

Having said that, I would still recommend this novel since it is loved by several people.







Other quotes I liked:
I can't look at it now. That was my first home. Not my parents’ place, not a flatshare with other students, my first home. I can’t bear to look at it. Well, I can, I do, I want to, I don’t want to, I try not to. Every day I tell myself not to look, and every day I look. I can’t help myself, even though there is nothing I want to see there, even though anything I do see will hurt me.


I can’t really see her, of course. I don’t know if she paints, or whether Jason has a great laugh, or whether Jess has beautiful cheekbones. I can’t see her bone structure from here and I’ve never heard Jason’s voice. I’ve never seen them up close, they didn’t live at that house when I lived down the road. They moved in after I left two years ago, I don’t know when exactly. I suppose I started noticing them about a year ago, and gradually, as the months went past, they became important to me.

The train stops. We are almost opposite Jess and Jason’s house, but I can’t see across the carriage and the tracks, there are too many people in the way. I wonder whether they are there, whether he knows, whether he’s left, or whether he’s still living a life he’s yet to discover is a lie.


I can’t risk it. I couldn’t bear to have other images in my head, yet more memories that I can’t trust, memories that merge and morph and shift, fooling me into believing that what it is not, telling me to look one way when really I should be looking another way.