The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkes

This book was highly recommended to us by another all-female book group. Billed as a 'psychological thriller' this was a new genre for us as a group read and it got a unanimous, and enthusiastic, vote as our next read. 

So, did we enjoy it?  

It's clever (nothing is obvious and it twists and turns in unexpected directions) BUT it's drawn out and yes, we know she's an alcoholic and we didn't need constant reminding. 

The idea of the train and the view into the gardens is great. Most of us imagine we have been on the same train line and enjoyed the garden spotting opportunities it presents! And, the tiny bits of information that are just dropped in to make the reader 'wonder' are really clever. 

It's is a real page turner - even the slow readers among us found they read it in record time. 

We expected to get chilled by a thriller, to feel afraid of what would happen next, to be frightened when reading alone at night, and we didn't. That's the disappointing bit.

The characters - well they are all a bit far-fetched. 

The police are really badly portrayed. We would spoiler the book if we explained why but their behaviour is so questionable that we wondered if it would offend most self-respecting police. 

We loved Cathy - what a good friend. We wonder what happened to Cathy after. 

Megan's story is so sad. Tom, we were not surprised by. Scott is weak and questionable. Kamal is a genuinely nice bloke (we had to re-read the kiss, it caused great debate). Mac is unforgivable. 

But why are all the women portrayed as losers and victims? We are actually quite angry about that. It's so unnecessary to do that. 

We ended our discussion trying to work out why is this book so popular? Marketing, Richard & Judy, very readable, there's a film, the title is clever and one you can relate to.  It's hype. 

We won't recommend it (but you might want to give it a go anyway and see what you think!)

Our next read is a classic: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and we will meet to discuss that on Thursday 26th January 2017 at 8pm in The Hundred.