The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins takes the reader on a unique voyeuristic journey The authors voice makes you feel like you are listening in on a stronger tell her dirty little secrets. The characters never really become your friends because none of them have any truly redeeming qualities. Rather, they are all lying, adulterous vultures pursuing the pleasures of their own flesh - all of them with some addiction or another.
The story is riveting. The murder mystery is intriguing and will keep you guessing to the end. It's a fast-paced plot and a fast read. Like a tragic, bloody highway accident, it's impossible to turn your eyes away.
But, there are a few challenges to overcome. The three primary female protagonists are each presented in first person and the author frequently jumps from one person's viewpoint to another while also leaping from one date to another - sometimes back and forth over the course of the year. About a quarter of the way in, I found myself making date and time references just to keep track of whose version of the story I was reading. This does distract from the story, although the way the three women's lives are intertwined throughout the story plays well in this method.
I give the author credit for attempting it. It was difficult to keep up with as a reader, I imagine it was a great challenge to keep it all straight as a writer.
I did find the voices of the characters to be an even more challenging obstacle to overcome though. I was able to take notes to keep track of timelines, but throughout the story the voices of the three female protagonists were much too much alike. I found that even when I had the timeline straight, I lost track of who was talking.
I also found the male characters blended together as the primary's were both portrayed as angry and physically violent. The women who submitted to them were all defenseless and fools, who only had their sexual wiles to manipulate the men around them. The back stories that brought these three women together made the plot one that could not be left unread, but the characters themselves felt flat and too stereotypical. Without their tragic pasts, they would have had nothing of interest to say.
There are a couple of minor troubles with the plot, such as [spoiler alert] Megan doesn't know she is pregnant a full two months after the supposed last time she saw the man who is the father of the child. Also, on August 4th, Rachel calls Scott and they agree to meet in the morning, but then she goes there in the section marked for that evening while the dialogue appears as though it is actually the next morning. I might not have noticed these discrepancies if I hadn't had to keep a written timeline alongside the book.
Overall, an enjoyable novel in the crime drama, thriller variety.
