Book Review: The Girl on the Train

You’ve all probably heard of the book, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (aff). It’s been made into a movie coming out in October. You know how when a book gets made into a movie, it suddenly gets really popular? Yeah that happened with this book. That’s why I was surprised to see a brand new copy at the local thrift store for $2.99.

I had been wanting to read the book before I saw the movie and I had heard great things about it. But I was really in no hurry to read or watch it. I would wait till the movie had been out a while, rent the book, and then rent the movie.

But then Anna of annaelizabethevents.com announced The Girl on the Train as the #BabesWhoBookClub book for August and I thought “Why not?” Wow. I couldn’t put it down. And now I can’t wait for the movie!

Now, you should know that the format is different from most books I’ve read. It’s written in first person but it’s almost like a diary entry. And the “chapters” switch between three women’s points of view. You get a name, day of week, date, and time of day (early morning, morning, afternoon, evening). This got a little confusing for a bit at the beginning. Especially because one point of view was the present and another started back about a year ago. I found myself having to flip back and remind myself what things happened on which dates. But I got so into the book that I really didn’t mind that too much.

Now let me give you a fair warning, this book is not completely clean. It’s not raunchy or anyting but there is some cussing and sex. Oh, and before I forget, it’s written in Brittish English which I loved! (Babysitting = childminding, diaper = nappy, bathroom = loo, come over = come round, trunk = boot, to call = to ring, and lots of different spellings)

Now as you probably know, this book is a mystery. Someone goes missing and others try to figure out what happened. My opinion of who did it flip flopped back and forth the whole book until probably the last quarter of the book. I assumed it wouldn’t be an obvious answer and I actually guessed the right person, but for the completely wrong reason. There was a really crazy twist at the end!

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries or just realistic fiction in general. It was a quick read and completely engulfed me in the story!

Have you read The Girl on the Train? What did you think? Did you get the mystery right?
Thanks for reading!