Every so often, a book comes out of nowhere that suddenly everyone is reading. The Twilight series. Oprah books. 50 Shades. And last year’s Gone Girl. Most of the time, these books are crap. But at least they get people reading and talking. I remember when Twilight came out, and a woman I knew — who never, ever read — was so obsessed with reading those books that she took time off from work and paid her nanny for extra hours so that she could […]
We Are Unreliable, Even To Ourselves
I don’t know that I’m the intended audience for this book. I enjoy a bit of a mystery, but generally I can leave unreliable narrators and not look back because they tend to drive me to distraction. I picked this one up based on the review by popcultureboy at the end of last year. Then I started to get nervous when I realized that there were a lot of comparisons to Agatha Christie whom I have never read (I know) and Gone Girl which I […]
The view from the train ain’t always the same.
I’m not quite sure The Girl on the Train deserves all the hype it’s being given, but it’s a fast-paced psychological thriller/mystery, and I think it succeeds handily in being exactly what the author wanted it to be. I didn’t NEED to read it, and you don’t either, but I’m glad that I did. As is always the case with these sorts of books, the less said about the book the better, but I do want to take a second to talk about some things: […]
Everyone on your train is drunk
The Girl on the Train is a read-in-one-sitting thriller from the perspectives of three women in each others’ orbits. They’re all flawed-to-unlikeable, but somehow still sympathetic, which is a nice balancing act and the result of some skillful writing. Overall, the whole book is successful on so many levels, from being an enticing character study, to a fast-paced, compelling mystery. Have you seen that Donald Glover sketch about crazy women stories vs crazy man stories? If you haven’t, I recommend you watch it, but if […]
Riding A Train While Drunk Sounds Awful
I don’t think I’ve ever met a character who annoyed me more than our protagonist Rachel. That said, I see this as a win for the author, Paula Hawkins because even Rachel seemed tired of dealing with herself. Fired for months now, our alcoholic friend spends her days riding the train to and from “work” because she doesn’t want her roommate to know that she has been fired. This is pretty much a metaphor for her life–constantly moving but making no progress. The train pauses […]
Secrets, Voyeurism, Alcohol, and Jealousy
Whew! I took a long (long) lunch at work just so I could finish this book. I read it in an evening and a lunch hour, and you should too. Rachel is our main narrator. She rides the train to and from London every day, passing by the same houses every day, imagining the lives of the people who live there. One couple in particular, a Perfect Couple, “Jess” and “Jason” live just down the street from her old house (dum dum dummmm), and she’s […]
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