THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN: PAULA HAWKINS

 

GENERAL OVERVIEW:

RATING: 3.5/5

GENRE: Mystery, Psychological Thriller

DATE OF PUBLICATION: 13 January 2015 (Riverhead, US)

AUTHOR: Paula Hawkins

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Paula Hawkins is a British author. She was born on 26 August 1972 in Salisbury,  Rhodesia, United Kingdom. Her Pen name is Amy Silver. She is a novelist and a journalist. She completed her formal education at  Keble College, Oxford. 

 She is best known for her top-selling psychological thriller novel The Girl on the Train (2015). 

She worked as a journalist for The Times, reporting on business. She then worked for several publications.

In November 2016, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.

Her other notable works are:

INTRODUCTION:

The Girl on the Train is a psychological thriller novel by British author Paula Hawkins. It gives three different perspectives on women about relationship troubles. What's more interesting is that their daily lives are being threaded together in oblivion.

Rachel is forlorn and desolately single. She commutes from London every day while watching lovely couples from her train window. She even fantasizes about the couple's name in her head and confides them as perfect in her imagination. 

She is always imagining as she is always with canned bottles of gin and alcohol. They are the couple who live a few doors down from her old house.  Her ex-husband still resides with his new wife and baby girl in her old house. 

Her so-called perfect girl disappears all of a sudden after some unusual events that involve Rachel with her obliviousness.

ANALYSIS:

The narrator is an alcoholic Rachel after her tragic divorce from her husband, Tom. She is not being able to get past her past. She drinks and due to her perpetual drinking, she is not being able to live her life according to her desires. She has ruined her bond with everyone who cares about her. 

She takes a train to her fictitious work and catches a glimpse of a perfect couple. She assumes the couple to be unmistakable to each other. She sees them every day but one day she notices something unusual that makes her pang in her heart. She then begins to hate the girl when she finds the girl is missing.

 

She suspects the girl is missing after she saw the unusual during her usual commute. The spotting of the missing girl is where all the three women are bonded together and the confusion starts. 

The other narrator is Jess: the missing girl. Jess is the name Rachel assigns the girl. She is living a happy married life with her husband. But she is not happy with her happy life. She sees a psychological doctor due to her unidentified mental tension. 

 

And the third woman is none other than her ex-husband's wife. Their lives are lopsided after the girl is missing. She lives with her husband with her baby girl which has always been the life she's wanted. But is it always the life she's wanted with the right person?

The divergence of the suspicion regarding the girl's disappearance is exotically superb. This is the major storyline that binds the readers and encourages page turnover. 

CRITICISM:

Though the story plot is mysterious and exceptionally exotic the author has not been able to fully justify the narrators. The narrators are characterised as overly sympathetic and miserable. They are always under the influence of their partners.

The women dwell on their past too much on which they are ruining their present as well as their future.

The story is not in chronological order. It is set in different time zones and creates confusion amongst the readers. Though the date and day are provided the readers do only look at them when it's mentioned in the story. 

The character development is shaky. The characters are too much relied upon other characters to be defined their personality. 

MY CLOSING THOUGHTS:

It is an incredible thriller psychic novel with an excellent plot that certainly drives the psyche of the readers. It truly fits the genre.  It is a must-read page-turner novel that won't let you sit until it's finished. 

All three narrators are unreliable and shaky which makes the story more engaging to go on with the pages. 

This novel is not a disappointment but there are things to be improved to be liked by all. 

HAPPY READING💞

BY SANJITA NAPIT