The #1 New York Times Bestseller, USA Today Book of the Year, now a major motion picture starring Emily Blunt. The debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives, from the author of Into the Water and A Slow Fire Burning. “Nothing is more addicting than The Girl on the Train.”—Vanity Fair “The Girl on the Train has more fun with unreliable narration than any chiller since Gone Girl. . . . [It] is liable to draw a large, bedazzled readership.”—The New York Times “Marries movie noir with novelistic trickery. . . hang on tight. You'll be surprised by what horrors lurk around the bend.”—USA Today “Like its train, the story blasts through the stagnation of these lives in suburban London and the reader cannot help but turn pages.”—The Boston Globe “Gone Girl fans will devour this psychological thriller.”—People EVERY DAY THE SAME Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost. UNTIL TODAY And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Wow. Where to begin? The Girl on the Train is by a mile the worst thing that NUBClub has read. Its flaws are so comprehensive that it's difficult to find one that stands out. The main character is repulsive and pathetic -- I understand she's been manipulated and that she's meant to be broken, but how much of the self-pity can you read before you just want to throw the book away? The plot involves a ludicrously convoluted gaslighting conspiracy and a villain with no sensible motivation. The action of the story plods, with bizarre twists (really, Rachel blacking out for no reason at all? really, spying on a therapy session that then HELPS you?) And for all that is holy, the writing. Dialog that comic books would reject, descriptions that lean into cliché, but most of all, it's just so blandly pitiful. The choice to make the main character a self-destructive alcoholic was the central mistake of this work. She is just so deeply unlikable that nothing else in the book could be given the benefit of the doubt. I know this is brief and lacks the detail of other discussions, but the book is just awful. Don't read it. Don't watch the film. Just pretend the book never existed. That's what's best for everyone.