HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Loading...

The Girl on the Train (edition 2015)

by Paula Hawkins (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
17,6491111281 (3.63)527
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?… (more)
Member:FerminaDaza
Title:The Girl on the Train
Authors:Paula Hawkins (Author)
Info:Riverhead Books (2015), 336 pages
Collections:E-book
Rating:***1/2
Tags:None

Work Information

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Recently added byesfeld, SonomaLibrary12, Dzsozzy, sawcat, EmilyMerth, private library, Felix_Library10, Shortcake
  1. 191
    Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson (fannyprice)
    fannyprice: Similarly unreliable, damaged women trying to reconstruct their lives.
  2. 172
    Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Anonymous user)
  3. 40
    The Woman in the Window by Daniel Mallory (TAir)
  4. 30
    Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes (melissarochelle)
  5. 30
    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (James_Mourgos)
    James_Mourgos: Great murder mystery suspense from this famous Swedish author.
  6. 20
    The Widow by Fiona Barton (vancouverdeb)
    vancouverdeb: psychological suspense,various points of view, both feature a woman as the main character.
  7. 10
    No Night is Too Long by Barbara Vine (vwinsloe)
  8. 00
    Losing You by Nicci French (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: A beloved teenage daughter goes missing in Losing You, a stranger (of sorts) in The Girl on the Train. Despite this difference, these compelling psychological suspense novels, each set in England, offer a gripping, twisty story.
  9. 00
    In Fidelity by M. J. Rose (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: In these fast-paced, compelling psychological suspense novels, love, obsession, infidelity, and violence are all closely linked. Both centering around one woman, In Fidelity has a larger cast of characters (a family), while The Girl on the Train suffers alone.… (more)
  10. 00
    The Missing World by Margot Livesey (vwinsloe)
  11. 00
    The Earthquake Bird by Susanna Jones (SonjaA)
  12. 00
    The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani (MissBrangwen)
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 527 mentions

English (1,064)  Dutch (15)  Spanish (11)  Italian (9)  French (4)  Catalan (4)  German (2)  Swedish (2)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  Danish (1)  Indonesian (1)  Finnish (1)  All languages (1,115)
Showing 1-5 of 1064 (next | show all)
This was a real page-turner for me. Everybody in this book is kind of awful, and the way the story spun out, some of it was predictable, but really well told, and I kept on wanting to know what the next twist was going to be. ( )
  ledonnelly | Mar 11, 2024 |
Meh. It was a quick read in a ostepop kind of way. I figured out the killer *waaay* too early into the story which made it a little boring. Very much a beach read. Pity I wasn’t on a beach whilst reading it. ( )
  73pctGeek | Mar 5, 2024 |
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

I find myself going through books like I go through clean underwear. This book was no exception. It was a fast paced novel that kept me swiping (iPad) through the pages until the very end. However, I found this book to be predictable. although I played the guessing game throughout the novel, somewhere in the middle I figured out the killer. I've only seen the movie adaptation of Gone Girl, so I have nothing to compare The Girl on the Train to in regards of writing style. I didn't like any of the characters, but sympathized with their situations at different times throughout the story. All in all I felt that the women in the story were very weak, always seeking some sort of validation or approval from men. This book definitely isn't the next Gone Girl, but the story is very familiar and fans of Gone Girl will either love this one, or... well you know. ( )
  junjibby | Feb 25, 2024 |
This one makes you anxious and worried and scared all at the same time, until the end when you realize what is going on. Then it becomes a matter of "I should have seen that." What makes you anxious is that the protagonist is not the best of people, yet she wants to be, and that causes more problems than if she just left things alone. Except, it doesn't.

Read it. Do it in one setting. ( )
  BrandyWinn | Feb 2, 2024 |
See the full review and more at MyBookJoy.com!

Recommended: eh
For those who don't read many mysteries, for a slow-burn psychological drama, for a story you can read once and be done with forever after

Thoughts:
I finally got around to reading this book. And since I remember years ago that there was a lot of excitement around this book, including it being a Goodreads Choice winner (2015 I believe), and there was also a movie adaptation, I had really high expectations. Maybe that was part of it's downfall for me, really.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it while I was reading it and was usually interested to see what happened next. I wanted to know the answer to the mystery. I had my own suspicions and was really angling for a specific outcome that I thought would have been worthy of the intensity of hype around the book. Each character intrigued me in their own way, and the snippets I got from Anna and Megan drew me in each time. I didn't dislike any of them, and was never disappointed when it switched perspectives.

What left me feeling lukewarm is that overall, my compulsion to read this was still fairly tepid. It didn't truly grip me in the way that I want from a psychological mystery thriller kind of story. There were some unexpected plot elements thrown in that were a delicious surprise, but there were also some opportunities that I felt were missed out on. There isn't a lot of actual action within the story, as it focuses on interpersonal questioning and scheming. Now that I've finished it, I feel like I will probably not think of it much ever again.

In the end, the ending was decent and the weave of the three central women's lives was concluded well, if not exactly tidily. There's still some open-endedness to the story, as what happened would mess everyone up mentally for sure. The openness appeals to me, as I can further imagine what would happen with the characters after the final page. But still - overall, I find myself longing for something closer to [b:The Murder of Roger Ackroyd|16328|The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Hercule Poirot, #4)|Agatha Christie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1389734015l/16328._SY75_.jpg|1073110]. ( )
  Jenniferforjoy | Jan 29, 2024 |
Showing 1-5 of 1064 (next | show all)
"...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."
added by fannyprice | editThe Guardian, Alison Flood (Jan 19, 2015)
 
“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 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
added by rybie2 | editNew York Times, Janet Maslin (Jan 4, 2015)
 
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. 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
 

» Add other authors (25 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Hawkins, Paulaprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Brealey, LouiseNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Corbett, ClareNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Crescentini, CarolinaLettoresecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Fisher, IndiaNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Göhler, ChristophÜbersetzersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lawrence, Vera Brodskysecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Manhood, SilasPhotographersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Porteri, BarbaraTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ward, ClaireCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

Awards

Distinctions

Notable Lists

You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
For Kate
First words
She's buried beneath a silver birch tree down towards the old train tracks.
Quotations
The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps.
All those plans I had—photography courses and cookery classes—when it comes down to it, they feel a bit pointless, as if I'm playing at real life instead of actually living it. I can't do this, I can't just be a wife. I don't understand how anyone does it—there is literally nothing to do but wait. Wait for a man to come home and love you. Either that or look around for something to distract you.
...let's be honest: women are still only valued for two things—their looks, and their role as mothers.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Information from the Catalan Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

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?

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary
Fall-down drunk rides trains.
Witnesses murder? Maybe.
Needs to sober up.
(pickupsticks)

LibraryThing Early Reviewers Alum

Paula Hawkins's book The Girl on the Train was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.63)
0.5 2
1 115
1.5 17
2 453
2.5 101
3 1453
3.5 433
4 2124
4.5 155
5 894

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,230,202 books! | Top bar: Always visible