Review
by Deb Czajkowski
You
board the train, the 8:04 AM commuter train.
You, like many others, take this train every morning, Monday through
Friday, heading into the city. It
doesn’t take long and you begin to recognize the faces of fellow commuters; all
are quite normal-looking, each filling the travel time in a variety of
ways. Some are listening to music, some
are reading, others are on their phones, or typing away on computers. There are also a few, like you, who just
enjoy looking out the windows, as landscape after landscape floats by. Are they, also like you, staring into
people’s homes? Wondering what their
lives are like? Creating imaginary lives
for them?
This
is Rachel; one of our 8:04 commuters, a creator of imaginary lives. Well, mostly Rachel focuses on two houses,
number fifteen and number twenty-three on Blenheim Road. Rachel used to live in number twenty-three
when she was married to Tom. Now Tom
lives there with his new wife, Anna, and their baby daughter, Evie. Number fifteen is where Rachel sees Jess and
Jason most days as the train slowly creeps passed their row house. Jess and Jason are, in Rachel’s mind, her
ideal couple: both beautiful and happily married; two things Rachel is not but
wishes she were.
Anna
loves being Tom’s mistress-turned-wife; and now also the mother of his
daughter. Cheating on poor, pathetic
Rachel with Tom was exciting, exhilarating.
Being married to Tom, well, it’s still good. But it also has its drawbacks: Anna hates
living by the tracks, in the house that he shared with his ex-wife, Rachel; and
she really hates the constant harassment by whiney−and usually drunk− Rachel, who
frequently calls Tom, professing her undying love for him and begging him to
take her back.
Megan,
a.k.a. “Jess”, lives in row house number fifteen with her husband, Scott,
a.k.a. “Jason.” Megan loves living by the tracks, listening to the trains every
day. She loves to have her morning
coffee on the back patio as the trains rumble by. To the commuters−to Rachel, Megan appears to
be the picture of pure bliss. Megan,
however, is imagining their happy,
uncomplicated lives−secret-free lives.
Then
one night, Megan walks out of her house and completely disappears. And so the
search for−and questions about−Megan begins, starting with the obvious: Where is Megan? Is she dead or did she simply walk away from
her life in number fifteen? If she’s
dead, who killed her? And why? If she’s alive, why did she leave?
Looking
at your house, would people imagine a happy family, happy lives? Probably.
Does that mean your life is as picture perfect as it might seem from the
outside? Probably not. We do that; we look at other people’s lives
and imagine them problem-free, secret-free, care-free. But whose life is? Author Paula Hawkins illustrates this well in
The Girl on the Train. Things aren’t always as they seem, and
people aren’t always exactly as they appear to be. Paula starts this life lesson by laying out
Rachel’s flaws, problems, and obsessions.
And then she lets us peek up-close through the windows at numbers
fifteen and twenty-three, right into the real lives of the people who live
there.
Perhaps
your life right now feels like more struggling and less succeeding. Perhaps you like a good mystery. Or perhaps you just want to know what did
happen to Megan. Join Rachel, The Girl on the Train, for an
interesting ride and an intriguing read.
Purchase the book at:
About the Author:
Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist
for fifteen years before turning her hand to fiction. She lives in London. The Girl on the Train is her first
thriller. It is being published all over the world and has been optioned by
Dreamworks.
Connect with the author at:
Penguin/Random House is giving
2 lucky winners a print copy of
The Girl On The Train
US ONLY
a Rafflecopter giveaway
