Book Review: The Girl On The Train

I love to read so I think it is but appropriate to have a regular book review on this blog, a book club if you like. As much as I love to read, I have lost touch with the beauty of reading as life got in the way. In the last few months, I have started reading again. I have started reading real books, the one that you actually hold in your hands and be able to actually flip the pages. 

One of my new year's resolutions is to read at least one book a month (that might change haha) and post in here what I think about it. Beware of my disclaimer as I am not a literary critic so don’t expect New York Times bestseller type of reviews. I will review books the way I know how, the stage mommy way.

My first ever book review on the blog is The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins.

I am easily taken by thrillers and this particular book promises hair raising suspense. I swear I couldn’t put this  book down for the life of me. The main character's constant blackouts makes the story more confounding and I love how the author made three of the characters carry out the narration in the book. Knowing what the other characters are thinking during the course of the story makes it more interesting than it already is.

The main character, Rachel, is an alcoholic whose life went for the worse when her marriage collapsed. Her husband left her for another woman, Anna, whose character takes one of the three narrations in the story. Rachel takes the train to London daily and has been obsessed with a couple (whom she calls Jess and Jason) who sits on their balcony each morning and whom she sees from where she sits on the train. She develops a compulsive familiarity with the couple even though she only sees them from afar. On one of her daily commutes, she "witnessed" something odd about the couple. She learned a few days later that Jess, who is actually named Megan, who takes the third narration in the story, has been missing since that last particular day she saw them on the balcony. One puzzling thing is that she feels she holds the answer to the mystery of Megan's disappearance as she has been having flashbacks of herself walking along the street where Megan lives, injured and bloodied, on the night she disappeared. The story slowly unravels from there, out of the twists and turns that the author cleverly fabricated into the story.  We later on learn that each and every character in the story are somewhat interrelated with a very interesting back story in each of them.

The concept of what happened to Megan and how Rachel could hold the answer to the mystery of her disappearance as manifested by her flashbacks is the gripping component of this book. I just couldn't wait to finish it to know what actually happened to Megan and what was Rachel's connection to it.

I really enjoyed this book and if you are like me who loves the thrill of a suspense story then this book is for you.

The book is soon to be released on film by Dream Works with Emily Blunt as Rachel.