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The Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins

Start date: September 1, 2016

Finish date: September 30, 2016

Discussion: After the Book Discussion

Why we're reading this: Scare Challenge
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What Members Thought

Jun 14, 2015 Yodamom rated it it was ok

Shelves: pathetic-characters, less-than-i-expected, audio, just-was-not-into-it, drama-rama, life-sucking, so-so-slow, wish-i-never-read, alcoholism, pathetic-charactrs

2.5 for great narration
When I said I really hated the characters in this book and disliked the whole story I got a lot of this

I found the main character pathetic, in her alcoholism, her inability to move on, her lack of common sense. She was boring, repetitive and predictable.
The story read the same, slow filled with unlikeable characters, a predictable story and a meh ending.
The feeling I got most for this was that I just wanted somebody to kill her and end her pathetic existence. The main cha ...more

47 likes · Like · see review

Mar 28, 2015 Carrie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, library, england

Have you ever driven by stretches of houses wondering what life was like behind those walls? Now imagine driving past them daily, the stories you can make up in your own mind of the people inside, their lives, even giving them names. What happens when you see something, something that changes how you think of these people. What do you do?

What do you do when you don't know who to trust? When everything is lie, or everything is a black hole because you can't bear the reality so you drink away the ...more

39 likes · Like · see review

Apr 07, 2015 Colleen Scidmore rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-reads, 5-star-reads, contemporary-fiction, drama, books-read-in-2016, favorites, mystery

OMG this book is soo good! My son had read it and kept telling me to read it, but I put up resistance because we don't always have the same taste in books. But I'm so glad I finally gave in.

It's about a woman named Rachel who has a very sad life, she lost her husband, Tom to another woman because of her drinking. Her drinking was sooo bad she would have blackouts and not remember a thing to find out she had either verbally or physically abused her husband the day before. The drinking started to OMG this book is soo good! My son had read it and kept telling me to read it, but I put up resistance because we don't always have the same taste in books. But I'm so glad I finally gave in.

It's about a woman named Rachel who has a very sad life, she lost her husband, Tom to another woman because of her drinking. Her drinking was sooo bad she would have blackouts and not remember a thing to find out she had either verbally or physically abused her husband the day before. The drinking started to get bad when she found out that she could not get pregnant, she wanted so desperately to have a baby with Tom she lost her way. That was two years ago. Present day, her drinking is just as bad as ever, she won't stop contacting her ex who has a new wife, Anna and a baby girl living in their old home. She has lost her job because of the drinking and gets on the train everyday to pretend to go to work so not to upset her roommate Cathy who took pity on her and took her in. This poor woman is a mess. It sounds like she went from a determined beautiful woman to a weak drunken slob who just gave up on life.

Everyday on this train she passes by her old neighborhood, she sees her old house but she's also been noticing a young handsome couples house on the same street for the past year. She lives vicariously through them and just enjoys seeing their daily activities and how in love they seem to be. She also imagines what occupations they do or what they like to do for fun, it helps her not deal with her own life focusing on them. She doesn't know their real names so she calls them Jess and Jason. One day as she's passing their house on the train she notices Jess is out on her patio and she is not with her husband but another man and they look much too intimate to just be friends. So her image of the perfect couple is now shattered.

The next day is Saturday and Rachel is very drunk and decides to get on the train and try to speak with her ex Tom, so she gets off at Witney and that's when things get fuzzy. She wakes up at her house with a couple of cuts and bruises and can't remember a thing except for talking with a orange haired man. Soon after she finds out Jess, really Megan Hipwell has gone missing that night.
She puts herself in the investigation trying to help Jason, really named Scott because she feels the police are looking at him and after all the tender moments she saw between him and Megan she is positive there is no way he could do something to her, and besides there was a lover who the police and Scott need to know about.

Rachel goes through many battles with herself and others to try to do the right thing to help Scott and also giving sobriety a try, with some fails, to get her life back. She's also starting to remember some details about that night and thinks she may have the key to what happened.
There are so many twists to this book, you honestly don't know what exactly happened and who was involved until the end, and there are so many suspects.

I loved this book, there was so much intrigue and mystery and raw emotion and so hard to put down. I give it a big thumbs up! And if you are reading this review and have not read the book yet I suggest you go pick it up, you will not be disappointed! ...more

20 likes · Like · see review

Apr 11, 2017 Gertie rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, mystery, library

4.5 Audiobook from the library, narrated by 3 women.

Quickly... because this book has been reviewed enough times by now, wouldn't you say?

I was pleasantly surprised by this one - books without some strange, supernatural or alien element tend not to interest me, but this was an intriguing mystery to follow.

Our main character is pathetic. That's just the best word for it. She trudges through life, drowning in her own misery, and is so disappointed in herself that she doesn't even stand up for hers ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Mar 05, 2018 Rachel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Some acts are unforgivable, they destroy so completely that the damage is irrevocable.

Reading this book brought to mind this question: Why do so many people say their marriage vows with absolutely no intention of keeping those vows? Not just the notion that they have found their true love and will be true to them, but also the whole idea of "for better and for worse."
Hawkins illustrates for us just how destructive breaking those vows can be.
Thank you, Ms. Hawkins! ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Nov 05, 2016 Kathi rated it liked it

Shelves: book-clubs

This was a fast read, but not an easy read. Although it was a good mystery, these people are all terribly damaged. It made it hard to feel any sympathy for any of them, but it did make me appreciate the good things and even (or maybe especially) some of the more mundane things in my life.

Like · see review