Review: The Girl on the Train
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
What I expected from this book:
Girl protagonist, murder mystery, trains.
What I got:
Alcoholism, depression, anxiety disorder, psychopathy, obsessional stalking, one lousy psychotherapist, and a little bit on trains.
This book was painful to read. I liked the climax part, I thought it was well written and executed. That was the only good part about it. Everything else before the climax was bad. Real bad.
The characters are unlikeable. They all are broken people at their core and had no redeeming qualities at all. If the characters didn’t meddle in other people’s affairs, cause so much unnecessary drama, and let the police do their jobs, then the case could be solved. In fact, without all the drama there probably wouldn’t have been a case in the first place.
The characters are probably why it was a pain to read.
There was bad foreshadowing. Usually, the author would put in strong clues and mislead you with red herrings all around. But here, the major piece of the puzzle is only revealed just before the climax. The entire book is one big red herring made up of tiny red herrings sewn together.
The ‘victim’ of the murder had a POV in the book. But what’s the point of her POV if she is just going to keep key information from the reader? Her only job is to give out red herrings.
The book is also, I daresay, unfeminist. Having 3 female POVs doesn’t mean much if all of them are weak in character and men-dependant. Even the lone supporting female character is man-dependant.
The title of the book is misleading. It gives train-related books everywhere a bad name.
Really; don’t read this book. As other reviews have mentioned before:
The real mystery here is why so many people like this book.