The girl on the train by Paula Hawkins

Paula Hawkins debut thriller is centered around Rachel, a flawed woman that drinks too much. Every time she looses control, gets a blackout or contacts her ex husband, despite him having a new family. She has neither self confidence or pride. Paula Hawkins cleverly portrays a woman that does everything in her power to not have to face reality. She hides alcohol and takes the train every morning, despite not having a job to go to. Every day, the train passes by a house where a young couple lives, and she fantasizes about their perfect life together, and names them Jess and Jason. When the woman she calls Jess disappears, Rachel feels that she, herself, has seen something, but she had a blackout that night. She so wants to be needed and a part of something, so she decides to try to find out the truth. 

Paula Hawkins uses an easily accessible prose and the happenings in the high-paced book is interesting. As a reader, you easily forget where you are and loose yourself in Rachel's clouded world. Is she to be trusted? A big theme is credability. Is Rachel, an alcoholoc, depressed woman, credible? Who is? The recurring train can be seen as a symbolic world from which we look at, and distort, the reality, especially when it comes to diminishing ourselves and highten others.

The book resembles Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. They both contains less sympathetic characters and the same type of psychological suspense that makes you read just one more page. Paula Hawkins knows how to create a real page-turner that simoltaneously illuminates something more. She writes about a role that is the opposite of the ideal woman and how excluding that role might be. She not only portray a female alcoholic but also the the society's view of a woman that isn't os use to anyone, at least not in the beginning, and not taking care of herself. Rachel is sometimes difficult to symphatize with, but the contempt and disbelief she meets is described with a sharpness that you can feel it. It's an impressive debut thriller.