The Girl on the Train

An original at the time, has since spawned so many readalikes.

No spoilers in this review.

Okay, here's a bold statement. This is one of the best books I have ever read. After gaining a degree in English language and literature, and publishing books myself - that's perhaps a strange statement to make. And, weirdly, I agree with all of the one star reviews too. The characters are not in the least bit likeable, the person 'who done it' stands out like a beetle on a white rug from an early stage, but these things, for me, are unimportant.
I'm not interested in the "oooh ... who could it be ...?" dangling like string in front of a cat, for 400 pages, a handful of suspects, wanting me to attempt to spot the least likely person ... to put them in the frame ... that would be dull, dull, dull.
What I am looking for is verisimilitude: that sense of reality, in the deftness of description, the desperate and genuine human frailty of the characters. I got all that and more.
Okay, confession, I have travelled those lines into London now and again, and perhaps that has made me biased as to the realism, but, confession over, I have so many other things I love about this book.
Weirdly motivated by pet hates, here is what I love: I loath over description - in every seen, the author picks out the 3, sometimes 4, occasionally 5 most important aspects of the scene and describes them in a fresh way: from "boiling frogs in reverse" (you may need to read Chris Argyris to get that one) to the silence "stretching out, filling the space between us", to "the familiarity of walking upstairs and knowing which one is going to creek." I could go on and on. Whereas most authors will trot our cliche's of "lump in throat","jolt of electricity" etc etc, Hawkins pretty much avoids (okay, couple of instances at most) these throughout the book.
Next point, dialogue. I HATE dialogue that relies on "blah blah blah" she replied, "Meh Meh Meh," He contradicted, sarcastically" - lazy, lazy, lazy and in SOOOO much fiction. Hawkins? None of this. I counted only one or two "he said", "she saids." And what that gives you is the author's voice not interfering with what's going on, you feel the scene, feel the characters and for this, Paula Hawkins, I applaud you.
What else? The frailty of the human condition .... not many will like Rachel, many will pull their hair out at the things she does ... but anyone who's know pain and has ever developed a pattern of drinking, will taste the possibility of being Rachel and that's where the genius lies. You shouldn't relate to her character, but somehow you do. You want her to move on with her life, yet understand that she can't and for better or worse (probably worse) she won't. And I wanted so desperately to see where that led her.
Very few books make me forget my surroundings, this one did.
A yes, and pacing. You know those books where it takes four pages for someone to relay an unimportant experience and then the pivotal point happens in just one paragraph and you are left disorientated and out of reading rhythm .... none of that with this book, it's genuinely one of the most skilfully paced books I've read.
And lastly ... dialogue realism. Have you every read those books where either each character talks in the same way - that's really just the author's voice - or they talk as ridiculous caricatures ("Officer Maloney, pass me another donut!") well ... every word of dialogue in this book was believable and that's a MASSIVE achievement.
Oh, I could go on, but who wants to read a thousand word review?
A message to Paula Hawkins, don't be a Harper Lee: Write more books!! but don't rush them for a multi book deal, we'll gladly wait for another piece of brilliance.

An easy read with a predictable ending.