The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Book #21.

The book is about Rachel Watson, an alcoholic who forgets things including what happened on that one crucial night. The night when Megan disappeared. Megan lives near Rachel’s previous home which she happens to pass by everyday on a train.

The story switches between three narrators: Rachel, Megan and Anna. All cleverly flawed characters! Rachel, a divorced alcoholic in her early thirties, obsessed with her husband and living with her friend (who doesn’t know Rachel got fired and is unemployed). Megan, the woman who disappeared, the woman Rachel sees everyday from the train. And Anna, the new wife of Tom, Rachel’s ex-husband.

The author, Paula Hawkins, without a doubt understands psychology and suspense. And she did a great job to make her readers despise the characters, I think!  I’m not sure if everyone will agree with me, but yes, I despise them all. However, I still have to say that I like the way the book was written, it just wasn’t enough for me.

So this isn’t exactly a book I’d recommend but maybe for people who wants to try suspense and psychological drama, this ain’t a bad choice.

Quotable Quotes :

“I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts.”

“The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps.”

“Life is not a paragraph, and death is no parenthesis.”

“They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be.”

“Nobody warned me it would break us. But it did. Or rather, it broke me, and then I broke us.”

Rating : 3/5

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The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

Book #20. I just had to read it because it’s Gillian Flynn!

This is a short story with all the usual thrill present in Ms. Flynn’s books. It’s a story about an unnamed narrator who was first a beggar, then a “therapist” who gives a hand job to customers behind a psychic’s shop. She later became a palm reader or spiritual healer of some sort because she likes reading and she makes use of what she reads wisely to survive.

Though this is very short, it is very engaging. It definitely shows how the author’s imagination can go beyond her most popular novel, Gone Girl. It makes me want more!

Quotable Quotes:

“But I wasn’t a well-read bookworm; I was just a dumb whore in the right library.”

“People are dumb. I’ll never get over how dumb people are.”

Rating : 4/5

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