The Girl on the Train

     Rachel, a divorced alcoholic who recently lost her job, takes the same train at the same time every day to London. She is pretending that she's still going to work, to trick her roommate into thinking she still has her job. On this pointless train ride, Rachel sees this couple she calls "Jason" and "Jess." She adores and envies their relationship, from what she's made up just by watching them from the train window. The couple, whose real names are Megan and Scott, live just a couple houses down from her old house, that she used to live in with her now ex-husband. Suddenly, when Megan goes missing, Rachel's life takes a twist.
     Rachel witnessed Megan kissing another man, right before she went missing. She quickly becomes involved in the investigation, thinking she knows something no one else does about that mysterious kissing man she spotted with Megan from the train window.  Her involvement in this investigation to find Megan gets her in a lot more trouble than she planned. She's dealing with trying to figure out whether Megan ran away, was kidnapped, or possibly even murdered,  all while dealing with her addiction to alcohol, and current memory loss.
     This thriller is a great read, one that is hard to put down with a great twist to the end. It's written from the point of view of three different characters. Mainly Rachel, the drunk obsessing over what happened to Megan, and getting more involved than need be. She constantly is lieing, especially to Megan's husband Scott. She tells Scott she knew Megan from her art gallery, and that they were very close. This makes her feel important, being able to get involved after that. It shows she is untrustworthy though, and later see that almost all the characters in this book are. They're all twisted liars.
     Then we have the point of view of Megan, the missing girl. Hers is written like a journal entry, before she goes missing and tells us events from her past. Then we have Anna, married to tom. Tom is Rachel's ex husband, so you can assume that Rachel and Anna don't like each other. Anna writes about how she just wants to be left alone from Rachel, and be with Tom and her child.
     The different points of view helps better understand who the characters are, and what they're like. I like reading the different points of view because it's nice to know what other characters are thinking, besides just the main protagonist. It's a nice change from other novels. I especially like how the author Paula Hawkins makes you think so many different possible outcomes of what happened to Megan. She throws out all these theories, and it really gets you thinking. It also tricks you a lot into thinking that you know what happened to Megan, but then BOOM another twist occurs. It causes it to become cloudy on what your thoughts even are on what happened, until the very end, which I like.
     The Girl on the Train is an amazing thriller, full of suspense, action, humor, and  melodram with backstabbing characters. It's a fast read that keeps you on your toes without ever wanting to put it down, because you just need to know more.