Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This was a premise to which I couldn't say no. From the window of her train, troubled, alcoholic commuter Rachel Watson watches the world --including a couple who are frequently out on their terrace at the very point her train stops every day. She names them Jason and Jess and decides their lives are the perfect happy-ever-after that hers has never been. But then Jess, whose name is really Megan, goes missing; and Rachel's memory of the night Megan disappeared is a yawning black hole. Did she see something? Can she help these strangers who continually draw her into their lives? I expected a taut psychological exploration driven by the mystery, but Hitchcock this isn't. None of the characterizations ring true, and the plot is created by withholding information the characters would naturally be thinking about (other than Rachel, who can't think about the plot due to alcohol-induced blackouts). I didn't find a single one of these characters to be genuine in their humanity. They're not merely unlikable; their un-likability is forced and exaggerated. Rachel's convenient blackouts happen so frequently as to become tedious. Even sober, she constantly makes atrocious decisions, all the while acknowledging to herself variations on "I'm stupid" and "I shouldn't be doing this." She has no common sense, no boundaries, no willpower, no emotional fortitude whatsoever. The other first-person narrators are no more believable: Anna, who is married to Rachel's ex-husband Tom and seems to be a mash-up of sociopath and nurturer (what?); and Megan, about whom I really can't say anything without spoiling the mystery. The problem is, Megan's point of view conceals key things about herself as well, to the degree that the reader doesn't even know about the concealing until the climax (at which point there's no "aha," only frustration). In addition, the voices of these women are interchangeable and the climax includes the villain opining about his/her heartlessness using dialogue cliches to disparage the others while everyone sits around on sofas and drinks tea. The characters of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN remind me of those I've met in novels by Gillian Flynn and Chevy Stevens. Fans of those authors will likely eat this book up, too. But neither Flynn nor Stevens are my thing, so it's no surprise Hawkins isn't either. Next time other readers make such a comparison, I'll trust them and avoid.