Paula Hawkins is an African journalist and writer, although moved to England when she was young. There she studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University and worked for the “The Times” newspaper.
Before writing her best-seller “The Girl on the Train”, she wrote other four books using a pseudonym, but they didn’t succeed. Now, her book is the #1 on the New York Times ranking and a worldwide success! It was published in Portuguese, Greek, German, among other languages.
“The Girl on the Train” is about three women – Rachel, Megan and Anna. Rachel is the main character. She is a common girl that catches a train everyday from Ashbury to London. During her commute, she always looks to one specific house. There lives a charming couple that Rachel called “Jess and Jason”. She doesn’t know them, but likes to imagine how their life is from what she sees everyday through the train window. One day Rachel sees something schocking and, right after that, Jess – actually Megan – disappears. Everyone becomes a suspect in this case, including Rachel, who, dealing with an alcohol problem, loses her memory frequently and can’t trust herself. She tries to help at the investigations by telling the police what she saw before Megan’s disappearing, but should the police trust her?
Anna is the actual wife of Rachel’s ex-husband, Tom. Both women hate each other because of him, and Anna would do everything she can to end with Rachel’s life.
Between a lot of digressions and narrative changes, the story is a little confuse, but perfectly thought and eye-catching. It’s very similar to “Gone Girl”, by Gillian Flynn, because is written as a diary to help the readers not to lose themselves completely on the days and the girls.
ThIs is one of those books that you don’t know who to root for or who to suspect of: when you’re sure about something, the the next chapter makes you change your mind. You can’t possibly imagine the end of it.
So, The Girl on the Train is an involving book that requires attention because of its digressions and parts that are not that clear – because of the changing of narrator, or because it will be explained later in another chapter.
DreamWorks is already filming a movie based on the best-seller, that will launch on September 2016. It will be portrayed by Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux, Édgar Ramírez e Lisa Kudrow.