The Girl on the Train
- NYT bestseller · 102 weeks on the list, peaked at #1
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Editor’s note Rachel takes the same train into London every morning and watches, from the window, a couple in a house by the line whose life she has made up a story about; she is also an alcoholic who has lost her job and her marriage and still rides the train so her flatmate will not know. When the woman from the house goes missing, Rachel was in the street that night and cannot remember it. Paula Hawkins published it in 2015, three narrators and none of them reliable, and it sold more than twenty million copies in its first years; the film of 2016, with Emily Blunt, moved the story to New York. It is the thriller that, after Gone Girl, fixed the unreliable woman as the decade’s narrator, and it is still the better plotted of the two.
About the book
The Girl on the Train is a 2015 psychological thriller novel by British author Paula Hawkins. The novel debuted in the number one spot on The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers of 2015 list dated 1 February 2015, and remained in the top position for 13 consecutive weeks, until April 2015.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.0 across 2,031 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 93% of the weight and the score stays at 7.1 — the Thriller average of 7.6 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 7.0 | 2K | 99% |
| Open Library | 6.6 | 7 | 0% |
| Google Books | 9.0 | 10 | 1% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“I'm pretty meh about this book. Honestly, I didn't enjoy it much but, three stars because it was written well and I see the appeal. I didn't like it mostly because of Rachel's character. If I can't like the main character it is hard to…”
““The Girl on the Train” is a quick read, which clickety-clacks along snappily enough to read in a few sittings; it is the type of book to read when you want to stay up past your bedtime. Comparisons to “Gone Girl” are somewhat apt as…”
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Thriller — with scores between 7.0 and 7.1, closest to this book.
