Hi readers,
Please note there's going to be some possible spoilers! Sorry, it was difficult to void it.
If you're looking for a quick and easy novel without a complicated plot or characters whilst your sat on the beach and/or traveling then this book would fit nicely. I was drawn in by the tagline and the inside blurb when I picked up this book whilst in Waterstones waiting for my boyfriend. In my head I had this idea of a woman being like a spy and knowing details about the lives of a married couple from which she could see from the train. (Which maybe might make a good story or else just wouldn't work). I added the book to my list and asked for it when my birthday came around.
The opening chapter drew me in and I know it's bad, but it remind me of Fifty Shades Of Grey (Which I'm actually planning to go back and look at again next month). I think it was the style of writing, that boarding on older teen to twenty-some adult language, which means a simple vocabulary is used and thus making the novel easier and faster to read. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, but it does make for repetition and a 'dumbing down' within the story.
I really liked the opening idea of abandoned clothes on the train track because its' something that happens and people question in real life. I thought this would be a key point in the story - you know like someone getting rid of evidence- instead though it's used very briefly to aid the main character -Rachel into remembering something about someone towards the end of the novel. Actually, before the first chapter -narrated by Rachel- the book opens with two excerpts from the novel itself, which of course you don't realise nor put into place until you're read them in their context. These two paragraphs do help to draw you in. How couldn't they? When a woman has been 'buried beneath a sliver birch tree' and magpies mock another person with they 'raucous cackling' as the person recites the nursery rhyme One for Sorrow.
Rachel's life and background story seem interesting enough; she's an alcoholic who has blackouts. That has led her to the state she is in now; divorced, jobless, depressed, boarding on homeless and bankrupted. Every day she takes the train to work to trick her friend, who she's currently stays with, into believing that she still has a job. Really she spends the days hanging around in London. Also, it allows her into the lives of 'Jess and Jason'. With the train having to almost always stop right behind their house, Rachel gets this window shot of the couple and seems to have become very knowledgeable and interested in them.
Now, here's where it all fell a part for me - Rachel has daydreamed this whole thing up. The couple who live there are really called Megan and Scott and Rachel doesn't know anything about them. Okay, I know that everyone -especially writers-do this all the time and it does work to flag up Rachel as a unreliable narrator, but I just didn't like how it was done and I do think I would have preferred if Rachel had been stalking them or something like that. The other thing that caused me to have issues was the time and dates. I get that most people won't have been effect by this, but for someone who's not very good at keeping such a vast change of time and dates in their mind it starts to grate on you. Plus, it doesn't help the flow of the story. I've big issues with how stories flow and I so don't like narrative structures that stop/start.
This story also flicks between two other narrative voices Megan's and Anna's- who is Rachel's husband's new wife and daughter to his child. After awhile, I struggled to tell all three voices a part, there didn't seem much difference between them and at one point I wondered why the writer had decided to give us the same point of view told by two people in the same way. I think that if it had been Rachel's voice throughout everything would possibly have worked better. I think it was at this point that repetition started to get to me, I noticed how many times the characters made and drink cups of tea and coffee and alcohol drinks. Every other page they seem to do this and it's just lazy writing to give the characters an action to do.
To be honest the only reason why I carried on reading was because I wanted to find out what had happened to Megan and then who had killed her. There was nothing else after that first chapter that made me want to read on. I didn't really care what happened to Rachel or any other the other characters because I just didn't connect with them. The characters weren't that interesting over all nor did they do much development, except at the end where everything felt rushed anyway. The ending plot twist did kinda work, because I didn't get it till close to the reveal. I guess if you're into crime/thriller stories then you'd have got it sooner. Even on reflection though, it does seem weak and I wanted the killer to be more anger and have more motive. The police characters are just terrible, they never felt realistic and they are too far in the background to physical do anything. Maybe a flip on this story with them telling it could be another option?
Overall, I didn't much like this book. There were problems with the plot, characters and the narrative structure. I just can't be wonder if it had been told in a better way that maybe it could have been a better book? Still, I stand by what I said before at the start, so it's up to you decided to like it or hate it. For me though, I'll be passing this book on to my mum to see what she makes of it.
Till next time.
