Okay, first of all, Rachel, the main character, is in her thirties. She’d a woman. She’s a WOMAN on the train.
Second of all, uhm, sure, fine, I guess.
The girl on the train is an easy read. Not much happens on the pages, the story is pretty straightforward even as Rachel blacks out and forgets large parts of it. But blackouts do not equal nuance. It’s impossible to miss anything. Everything that is lost in black outs or changes in point of view, are conveniently remembered and expanded every time Rachel gets another epiphany about her past or her actions.
The book is marketed as a story about a woman on the same train ride every day who becomes obsessed with a couple in a house that she passes. However there are actually three narrators, all equally dull and hard to distinguish. All of them are defined by their relationship to men and babies and then one of them disappears. Then Rachel gets drunk a lot and meddles in the police investigation.
So yeah, there are definitely words on the pages, but it’s not a sophisticated thriller by any means. Rachel blacks out and stumbles around and pokes herself into affairs for seemingly no reason at all. But it turns the pages, it distracts the mind. It’s an easy read and, despite its subject, a generic thriller, that’s good for lazy Sunday afternoons or maybe on the beach.
As a Rachel in my thirties I like to say – “The next time you say ‘girl’ I better see one.”
I’m stealing that one!