The Girl on the Train

Book, 2015; Movie, 2016, R

Premise -A divorced, unemployed alcoholic spends her days sitting on the train to and from London, watching the perfect houses as she passes them by. One house she is particularly attached to is the home of "Jason" and "Jess," two individuals she has never met before but fantasizes that they have the perfect marriage. Her illusion is shattered when "Jess," whose real name is Megan Hipwell, goes missing, and she is a suspect in her disappearance.

Review - Another fantastic thriller! This one gets mentioned alongside Gone Girl because they were both stunningly popular thriller novels from around the same era, and both had film adaptations. I read Gone Girl first because it was supposedly the "better" one, but honestly I have such a hard time picking between the two that I ultimately will rank them both equally. In all honesty, despite this film adaptation being largely dismissed, I think I prefer The Girl on the Train film to the Gone Girl film. Both books are fantastic though, and despite both being thrillers, are very difficult to compare.

What I appreciated about the film adaptation is that I felt that it was very faithful - particularly when it came to the representation of the characters. My last time comparing this to Gone Girl, I promise, because they're really not that similar, but my issue with the Gone Girl film was that I fell so in love with audiobook-Amy, that film-Amy didn't really quite do it for me. But in this film, our three most important characters are Rachel, Megan, and Anna, and I thought all of the performances were engaging and didn't lose my favorite core elements of the characters. It's great because this is a story told from the perspectives of three different women, each equally well-written and complex.

Arguably the most important character to get right, for me at least, was Megan. She was my favorite character in the novel, and I absolutely adored the voice of the woman in the audiobook. The novel switches between the perspectives of Rachel, Megan, and Anna, so listening to an audiobook meant there were three different voices, each astoundingly well performed. But Megan's voice will stick with me for years to come because it was just so... soft and sad. And largely, I felt that same sadness in the film adaptation, despite some of the details having to be removed.

The one odd thing about the film adaptation is that I was so surprised it was an American film that took place on the trains to and from New York, instead of London. I love British things. I love London, I love British accents, I love British culture... so I thought I was getting myself into a British film, like the novel, but I was wrong. That was quite the loss.

As far as the book is concerned, there is little to say because I found it quite flawless. A very engaging read that was a struggle to limit myself to an hour and half per day. I wanted more, and I wanted answers about what had happened to my beloved Megan. However, I will say that to me one of the most important aspects of a thriller is having a great plot twist, a shocking reveal that no one saw coming and yet makes the most sense in the world. This novel didn't really have that because it was obvious from the start who our culprit was, at least in abstract terms, and then as the novel progressed I was able to put a name to the culprit pretty easily (spoilers!). There are scenes from Megan's point of view where she is having an affair with another man. We don't know who the other man is, because he's not named, but it's clearly neither of our two suspects, so it's quite obvious that this man is the killer. From that point, it doesn't take long to figure out Tom is a bad guy who lies and manipulates people, and connects many of our characters together. It's not subtle either, it's a very gradual reveal of more and more suspicious things Tom has done. So it was obviously Tom long before it's officially revealed, and I'm not one who likes to be right about the killer. I want to be floored with shock.

It's a book that's a bit about female solidarity, and the abusive men that binds them all. It's also a book about the serious consequences of mental health. Rachel, a severely dysfunctional and depressed alcoholic, and Megan, a traumatized and anxious insomniac. Anna was not yet at their level, but she was also on a downwards spiral that she luckily could save herself from. (93/100)

Quote - "Hollowness: that I understand. I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’s what I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps."

What to watch for - As I've said, I really fell in love with Megan's character, not in terms of "Oh what a wonderful girl!" like perhaps Jess was fantasized to be, but I fell in love with the pure brokenness of who Megan really was. I loved the audiobook, but I thought film Megan was also very much worth watching.

If you liked this book, I'd recommend Gone Girl, but I'd also recommend the much less realistic and all the more fantastical Horns!

Written by Paula Hawkins
Published by Riverhead Books
Directed by Tate Taylor
Distributed by Universal Pictures