Log #5

Group reading

Book title: The girl on the train

Author: Paula Hawkins

Pages: P1~P91

    The girl on the train was written by PULA HA HAWKINS. This is her first thriller. The setting is set in London. The story started by a piece of description: “She buried beneath a silver birch tree, down towards the old train tracks...” Then, the main character is Rachel. The initial date of the first chapter is July 5, 2013. According to Rachel’s description, we know she takes the train every day, and she always cares about what happened outside the window. She loves trains. That’s also why she chose to live nearby a train track in the past. Unlike the normal people who often prefer living in a quiet environment, she likes the rumbling of the low- speed train. She usually observes a young couple who also live nearby the train track when she takes the train, they look like a happy couple. However, she doesn’t live there anymore after her divorce. She lives with a roommate now and obviously she has an alcohol problem. She feels frustrated about her previous marriage and her life. Her husband and his new wife let Rachel reminds a lot of bad memory and becomes very resentful. Another character named Megan. Megan is a married woman, and her husband named Scott. Her new job is a nanny but she decides to quit very soon. She was accepting some therapist. After that, Rachel read news on BBC website- Megan is missing. 

    I enjoyed reading detective novel when I was studying in junior college. After that, most of the time, I didn't read for fun but read for a practical purpose. The reason why I like the detective novel is because that there are often many logical and realistic elements in the story. The story could happen to different kinds of people in different places. In this novel, Rachel is a very realistic character. There is no prince and princess in the story. She is quite a normal person with a failed marriage and a drinking problem. What a real life. Most of us own an ordinary life pattern. But actually, our world is never ordinary. There are always something strange and amazing could be happened. I don’t want to experience them, but I want to peep the different human nature through this novel.