Philip's Reviews > The Girl on the Train
The Girl on the Train
by
by

Philip's review
bookshelves: thriller, mystery, 2015-releases, roadtrippin, better-than-the-movie
Mar 09, 2016
bookshelves: thriller, mystery, 2015-releases, roadtrippin, better-than-the-movie
2.5 ish stars.
This book has been labelled a psychological thriller and I'll concede that half of that classification is accurate. The first-person narrative, shared between three different characters, allows a complex psychological portrait of each character to be formed and provides insight into who these people are and why they do the things they do. These details unfold slowly and provide just as much incentive to continue reading as the "mystery" that drives the plot.
As far as being thrilling, this book really plays out like much more of a traditional mystery where events unfold, clues are slowly revealed (through a sort-of annoying plot device where the alcoholic main character regains memories of events she's lost during alcoholic blackouts), and red herrings are thrown in until the eleventh hour reveal where the culprit conveniently and calmly details the whats and whys of everything that's happened. Despite my perceptions of what this book would be like, it's not sexy, gritty or particularly thrilling. If anything it's just kind of awkward seeing such personal glimpses into the lives of these characters who aren't evil or sociopathic so much as they're just a bunch of insecure a-holes and trainwrecks who you always kind of pity even if you're shaking your head at them the whole time. The mystery itself doesn't even feel like a mystery so much as it does a psychological study wherein a disappearance just happens to occur. I didn't think it was very hard to figure out what was going on fairly early in the book. It's fairly well-written and moderately interesting and that's about as much as I can say.
This book has been labelled a psychological thriller and I'll concede that half of that classification is accurate. The first-person narrative, shared between three different characters, allows a complex psychological portrait of each character to be formed and provides insight into who these people are and why they do the things they do. These details unfold slowly and provide just as much incentive to continue reading as the "mystery" that drives the plot.
As far as being thrilling, this book really plays out like much more of a traditional mystery where events unfold, clues are slowly revealed (through a sort-of annoying plot device where the alcoholic main character regains memories of events she's lost during alcoholic blackouts), and red herrings are thrown in until the eleventh hour reveal where the culprit conveniently and calmly details the whats and whys of everything that's happened. Despite my perceptions of what this book would be like, it's not sexy, gritty or particularly thrilling. If anything it's just kind of awkward seeing such personal glimpses into the lives of these characters who aren't evil or sociopathic so much as they're just a bunch of insecure a-holes and trainwrecks who you always kind of pity even if you're shaking your head at them the whole time. The mystery itself doesn't even feel like a mystery so much as it does a psychological study wherein a disappearance just happens to occur. I didn't think it was very hard to figure out what was going on fairly early in the book. It's fairly well-written and moderately interesting and that's about as much as I can say.
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Reading Progress
March 9, 2016
– Shelved
June 6, 2016
–
Started Reading
June 10, 2016
–
Finished Reading
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Roger
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rated it 2 stars
Nov 20, 2017 07:39PM

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