This book review was originally published on The Wordy Nerd Books on April 28, 2015.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins has been on several bestsellers lists for quite a while.  I’ve seen other avid readers raving about it and comparing it to Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.  I finally decided that I needed to jump on the bandwagon and pick this book up.

I ordered this book from Amazon and I was so excited when it arrived at my front door.  I dug into it pretty quickly and I have to say, it did not disappoint.  This book was fast-paced and hooked me fast.  The story starts by introducing Rachel, a young woman whose world has fallen apart.  She is divorced and was recently let go from her job.  She spends her days drinking and riding commuter trains into the city so her roommate won’t know she no longer has a job.  She spends so much time on the train that she begins to make up lives for the people that she passes each day.  And then one day she witnesses something that might help the police in a missing person case but with Rachel’s history concerning alcohol, the police aren’t sure they can trust her.

I can absolutely see how this book has been compared to Gone Girl.  While I see the similarities, I don’t think the plot twists were quite as stunning to the reader as it was in Gone Girl.  The Girl on the Train definitely has surprising twists and turns.  I just think the reader can predict some of them. However, I don’t think that it took away from the book.  I still enjoyed it and I didn’t figure everything out so there were still some surprises.

The writing was good but I didn’t find that anything special about it stuck out for me.  Hawkins did a good job helping the reader jump to conclusions about different characters.  She develops the characters well. Overall, it’s easy to read and Hawkins does a good job at keeping the reader engaged.

If you’re into murder, mystery, and crimes, or if you like books similar to Gone Girl, then pick up The Girl on the Train.  It’s a great read.  Overall, I rated it four out of five stars!

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