Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
Riverhead Books (2015), 336 pages
Description
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning, flashing past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stopping at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. Their life, as she sees it, is perfect ... until she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but now everything is changed. Rachel goes to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?
Media reviews
"...a building, inescapable tension that Hawkins handles superbly, nibbling away at Rachel’s memories until we, like our sardonic, bitterly honest narrator, aren’t really sure we want to know what happened at all."
“The Girl on the Train” has more fun with unreliable narration than any chiller since “Gone Girl,” the book still entrenched on best-seller lists two and a half years after publication because nothing better has come along. “The Girl on the Train” has “Gone Girl”-type fun with
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unreliable spouses, too. Its author, Paula Hawkins, isn’t as clever or swift as Gillian Flynn, the author of “Gone Girl,” but she’s no slouch when it comes to trickery or malice. So “The Girl on the Train” is liable to draw a large, bedazzled readership too Show Less
Readers sometimes conflate the “likability” of characters with a compulsion to care about their fate, but with a protagonist so determined to behave illogically, self-destructively and frankly narcissistically (someone even refers to her as “Nancy Drew”), it’s tough to root for Rachel.
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She’s like the clueless heroine of a slasher film who opts to enter the decrepit, boarded-up house where all her friends have been murdered because she hears a mysterious sound through an upstairs window Show Less
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2017)
Audie Award (Finalist — Audiobook of the Year — 2016)
Crime Writers' Association Awards (Shortlist — 2015)
Barry Award (Nominee — First Novel — 2016)
Irish Book Award (Nominee — 2015)
The British Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — Fiction — 2016)
Australian Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — 2016)
Waterstones Book of the Year (Shortlist — 2015)
Crimefest Awards (Winner — 2016)
International Thriller Writers Award (Nominee — 2016)
Bästa översatta kriminalroman (Nominee — 2015)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Mystery/Thriller — 2015)
NPR: Books We Love (2015)
The A.V. Club best books (2015)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2015)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Fiction — 2015)
Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List (Selection — 2016)
Original publication date
2015-01-06