The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Almost all of us who take the train wonder about our fellow travelers. What are they like and what are their concerns?Many of us also look outside the window and think of the stories of people who we see there. As a young girl, traveling in Indian Railways, from one small town to the other, I used to create stories around the villages we used to cross. Paula Hawkin is clued on to this ‘time-pass’ we indulge in and ‘The Girl on the Train’ is about one such woman!
Rachel travels on the 8.04 slow train from Ashbury to Euston every morning to get into work at London, and then trudges back on the 5.56 train to come back home. There is a faulty signal on this line, and the train stops there on most days; on most days Rachel sits in carriage D, and on most days, she has a perfect view in her favorite trackside house – number fifteen. There, she catches glimpses of Jess and Jason, the perfect golden couple, who are in love and have a warm loving relationship. Rachel tries to never look at house number twenty three because that is a reminder of what Tom and she used to be , five years ago.
An alcoholic , out-of-control and out-of-job Rachel becomes drawn into Jess and Jason’s (of course those are not their real names) lives. She sees ‘Jess’ cheat on Jason with another man in their house, and when Jess disappears and is discovered killed, Rachel gets involved. She was in the same place the evening Jess was killed, she has bruises and no memory of what happened that night! No one takes her seriously, and her ex-husband tries to counsel her and protect her from further harm. Yet is not what it seems.
The Girl on the Train is a well-crafted book. From the perspective of three women, Rachel, her ex-husband’s present wife Anna, and ‘Jess’, the story begins to unravel, and the end comes as a surprise!
A perfect weekend read – or read it the next time you are traveling on the train!
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