Review: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Looking for a novel to live up to that suspenseful-buzz Gone Girl gave me (and provide a break from final-year-essay-induced-anxiety), I downloaded The Girl on the Train and dipped in and out of it as I completed my last semester at university. There had been plenty of hype surrounding this novel (two million copies sold in 3 months) and I was curious to see what all the fuss was about.

Within minutes of reading it, The Girl on the Train had me gripped; the simplistic notion of the lead character, Rachel, commuting and creating fictitious lives for the people she sees on her train journey is a surprisingly effective hook. 

Hawkins masterfully makes the domesticated settings of the novel curious and unassumingly dark spaces; the perfect couples inhabiting the average outer-London houses, and the seemingly normal Rachel who observes them, all hold disturbing secrets. The reveal of the characters' underlying nastiness (Rachel's alcoholism, Megan's past, etc.) muddy the edges of this seemingly fine suburban existence.

It is Hawkins' intentionally unlikeable characters that made this novel an uncomfortable, and admittedly sometimes frustrating, read for me. I found Rachel an annoying character, and I was unable to sympathise with her appetite for drink. I had to repeatedly remind myself that not all characters are meant to be liked, but I feel I have to hold onto at least one shred of empathy. Perhaps this frustration played out because I had expectations of Gone Girl in the back of my mind when I read The Girl on the Train; despite revelations about his seedy affair, I still liked Gillian Flynn's Nick (perhaps this likeability was due to the often comic sibling dynamic between him and Margot?)

My own prejudices aside, the way Hawkins manipulates the readers' perceptions of the main male characters is particularly striking. Tom, Scott and Kamal all move on a spectrum of evilness, with sometimes dramatics shifts in character. 

Ultimately, my main issue with this novel is the way Hawkins presents memory. The plot is driven by Rachel uncovering lost memories of an event that occurred on the night of Megan's disappearance, and at times I found the representation of her 'piecing' together such memories too contrived. The fragmentation of memory does, however, seem a reliable depiction of Rachel's struggles to overcome the blackout she experienced. 

After finishing the novel, I was left wondering about how gender conceptions are subtly explored. Whilst narratives of male-on-female violence are so often reported in today's media, Hawkins' novel does not group female characters in a 'victims' camp and males 'attackers'. The novel alters readers' perceptions of male and female characters' violent capacities - the once demonised characters are redeemed to innocence and the once weak commit evil acts.

Whilst The Girl on the Train is sold as a the perfect fast-paced summer read, it is interesting to explore Hawkins' nuanced questioning of public gender preconceptions/misconceptions.

Image source: Writing Times.