Girl on the train review sách năm 2024
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The Girl on the Train – Cô gái trên tàu điện Tác giả: Paula Hawkins The narrative is skilfully split between three women whose lives interlink tragically: Rachel, Megan and Anna. We first encounter Rachel on the commute home from London, just another tired worker on her way back to the suburbs – except that she has four cans of pre-mixed gin and tonic in her bag, and that’s only for starters. “It’s Friday, so I don’t have to feel guilty about drinking on the train. TGIF. The fun starts here.” The journey takes Rachel along the backs of houses on the street where she used to live. Unable to look at number 23, her old home, where ex-husband Tom now lives with new wife Anna, she focuses instead on number 15. She has become obsessed with the beautiful young couple living there, whom she names Jess and Jason. Rachel looks out for the pair every day, daydreaming about their perfect lives. Until one day she sees something that startles her in their garden, and when she reads in the paper that “Jess” – who is really called Megan – has vanished, she decides to tip off the police. She is convinced that “Jason”, now the prime suspect – and really called Scott – would never harm his beloved wife. But Rachel is prone to blackouts, irrationality and drunk dialling, and the police dismiss her as a rubbernecker. She has also been persecuting Tom and Anna, bombarding them with offensive messages. It is a bold move to create such a flawed female lead; the alcoholic lifestyle with its miserable excuses, urine-soaked underwear and vomit on the stairs is outlined in all its bleak, cyclic predictability. Rachel is not just weak, occasionally spiteful and self-pitying, but also overweight and relatively unattractive; a sad sack compared with vibrant Megan and glossy, sexy Anna, who glories in her victory over her predecessor. Yet as Hawkins demonstrates, apparently fixed identities and fortunes have their foundation on shifting sands. The more Rachel discovers about the missing Megan, the less she likes her. In a clear echo of Gone Girl (the success of which is presumably why this novel does not bear the more accurate title The Woman on the Train), Scott, the apparently grieving husband, is likewise more slippery than his charming manner indicates. Anna, too, comes to seem less like an innocent victim and more like a vindictive troublemaker. Tom is a nice guy driven to distraction by his batty ex-wife, but is there something disquieting lurking beneath his calm surface? Hawkins juggles perspectives and timescales with great skill, and considerable suspense builds up along with empathy for an unusual central character who does not immediately grab the reader. “Ingenious” twists usually violate psychological plausibility, as in Gone Girl. Hawkins’s Girl is a less flashy, but altogether more solid creation. In the words of Dean Koontz, every life is complicated, every mind a kingdom of unmapped mysteries. This quote is proper for the characters of The Girl on the Train book written by Paula Hawkins. The plot twirls around three women Rachel, Megan, and Anna. They all have different lives, but one incident brings them together, the day when one of them goes missing. Rachel is a jobless, alcoholic, sadist person who wants to reconcile her relationship with Tom, her ex-husband. While Tom is married to Anna and has a beautiful daughter Evie. They both are worried because of Rachel's reckless and irresponsible behavior. Being an alcoholic, she blacked out a lot, and one day she saw something terrifying but unable to recall the next day. Trying to fill the blanks, she came in contact with Scott, Megan's husband. From here, she creates a web of lies that damage her image entirely; and puts her on the police radar and Anna's. Because of Tom's infidelity, Rachel hates Anna and her daughter. She lost her mind whenever she saw them together, living happily in their home. Then, one day, she sees something from the train and confronts the person who shatters her illusions. In the process, she got to know more about Megan that changed her life completely. Megan has a disturbing history that kept her awake at night. She is unable to talk about it with Scott and opt for alternatives. Everyone is trying to hide their secrets and in the name of helping make the situation worse, especially Rachel. She goes through a lot in the past without even releasing the natural causes. When it started to come back, it hit hard and altered everyone's lives. Although her drinking didn't benefit anyone, she is not deemed to be reliable. With the person missing, the police start questioning everyone, leading them to nowhere, to be honest. The characters like Tom and Scott are manipulative, abusive, and sometimes proved brutal. While the female characters are portrayed as weak, vulnerable, jealous, and helpless. They always looking for love, make sacrifices for family, or are jobless. Paula Hawkins's writing style is beautiful, and she holds the readers guessing about the culprit. I was sure I knew the answers in the middle of the book, but she proved me wrong by giving another mind-blowing twist. A train journey changed the course of six people's lives forever. The story is engaging; I didn't even tell you who goes missing because I don't want you to know without reading the book. Although the characters are dysfunctional and not likable, so there is a chance that some readers will not enjoy reading it. But their journey and how it's all connected gives another kind of lift, and I want you to feel it. So, if you haven't read this book, pick it up. I recommend it. |
