Struggling her way through divorce and alcoholism, Rachel lives vicariously through a seemingly happy couple that live a few houses down from her own former, happy home. Everyday, she rides the train past their house and watches them as the train pauses to switch tracks. She makes up stories about who they are and the things they get up to, soaking up every detail she can see from her seat upon the train. But then Rachel sees something that shatters the image of the idyllic life she has constructed for the two strangers. The next day, the woman is missing, presumably murdered. Her husband seems to be the chief suspect. Rachel becomes obsessed with unraveling the mystery herself, even to the point of ruining what little remains of her own life. For Rachel went on another bender the night of the disappearance and cannot remember a thing, other than that she, too, was in the area and may have seen the victim before she went missing.
The story is told from three different, equally unreliable, characters' points of view. Rachel is the most prominent. The second is Megan, the murder victim, who is definitely not the person Rachel imagined her to be. The third is Anne, Rachel's ex-husband's new wife, who appears to be the perfect wife and new mother. She is, however, almost irrationally jealous and afraid of Rachel. And Rachel and Megan were eerily similar in appearance...
The Girl on the Train is listed as a thriller. The mystery of who killed Megan and exactly what happened that night has plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. I honestly had no idea what happened to the victim or anything else that occurred on the night in question until it was revealed at the end of the book. However, the narrative leans a bit too heavily upon the flaws of the main characters to build up suspense regarding the murderer's identity. For me, that meant they were all too unsympathetic to really make me care what would happen to them. This book reminded me a lot of 'Gone Girl', so, if you enjoyed that book, you might want to give this one a try.
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