Adventure 11: The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins
Week 11 of the reading challenge introduced me to Paula Hawkins’ novel, which was then a major motion picture as well. I had forgotten for a while now of how racy books can be, and had taken to accepting slow starts. Paula Hawkins’ work served to remind me of the opposite. Within minutes, I was hooked to the book, and couldn’t stop until I finished reading it. I finished it in two days, and it was the fastest I had read a book since this challenge started (with the exception of Leaf by Niggle, which was, in all fairness, more a short story than a complete book.)
We are introduced to Rachel, a normal commuter in one of London’s tubes, at the beginning of the book. Her life seems to be a repetition of the same mundane things, including a morning and evening train trip at the same time, watching the same couple by a house at a point in the train journey, and a daily dose of alcohol. A seemingly innocent observation of the couple throws her life apart as she notices something unusual during her daily routine of observing them. It doesn’t help that the particular house she chose to observe is almost next door to her ex-husband’s, with whom she shares a violent history. The rest of the story follows Rachel as she tries to get to the bottom of the issue, which gets compounded by her inability to remember things when she is under influence of alcohol. Told from the viewpoints of all the main characters in the story, the book hits top gear from page 1, and though it meanders a bit in the middle, has an amazingly startling ending which more than makes up for the laggard pace in the middle pages.
Airport thrillers, as I’d like to call books like these which are predictable in their unpredictability, use un-VictorianRomance-ish language, easy on the eye font, are instant bestsellers for the reason of engaging their viewers for a few hours, but keeping them riveted. Reading a book of this type was a good break from content heavy and literary books I had tried the previous few weeks. ‘The Girl…’ stays true to its genre, and adds some extra layers to give us something a little more too.
On the surface, ‘The Girl…’ is a who-dunnit, but unlike who-dunnits, does not seem to waste time in establishing each of the ‘suspects’ and their plots, and jumps right in to the ‘action’. The built-up suspense which keeps us on the edge for most parts of the book is also achieved not through dramatic incidents or characters acting out of a whim, but more through subtle changes to the usual flow, and the presentation of text. It is not until well into the latter half that things seem to happen quicker than the usual pace, but the suspense and the heart-racing begins well before, thanks to the author’s knack of making simple changes and seemingly nonchalant events add to the narrative.
There aren’t many reasons I could think of for not liking this book, especially when categorized under this particular genre. It is faithful to its nature, keeps us engaged, surprises us more than once, and has sufficient tracks and subtle changes to not be boring. The only qualm maybe that it meanders a bit in the middle, unsure of where to lead the narrative, which some readers may find obtrusive in an otherwise clear and crisp story. Much like the central character in the book, reconstructing drunken thoughts and coming to terms with being sober does involve confusion, and these passages may have been intended that way.
Overall, a solid, riveting piece of work, which caters to it’s target audience and manages to surprise the reader quite a few times!
