Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Girl on the Train
    Unavailable
    The Girl on the Train
    Unavailable
    The Girl on the Train
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Girl on the Train

    Written by Paula Hawkins

    Narrated by India Fisher, Clare Corbett and Louise Brealey

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life — as she sees it — is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy.

    And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she's only watched from afar. Now they'll see — she's much more than just the girl on the train...

    A Random House UK audio production.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House UK Audio
    Release dateJan 15, 2015
    ISBN9781473510890
    Unavailable
    The Girl on the Train

    Related to The Girl on the Train

    Related audiobooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Pigs might FLY

      May 12, 2021

      Pigs might FLY
      6 min read

    • Article

      Express Train

      Dec 1, 2020

      AT SIXTEEN, the price of a dream can be very high, as we would often learn that summer when the Rajdhani Express first thundered past our bedroom windows. Its maiden run from Howrah to Delhi had reverberated through our town. The few coins we had ear

      8 min read

    • Article

      Pigs might FLY

      Feb 20, 2024

      Pigs might FLY
      6 min read

    • Article

      Mirza Waheed Recommends Four Books

      Apr 4, 2020

      The Faraway Tree series has been a favourite for children (and some adults) for decades. I used to read a chapter every night to my son and, now, as we complete two weeks of near-contactless life in London, we’re reading it to our five-year-old daugh

      1 min read

    • Article

      Solo On The Subway

      Feb 1, 2019

      RASHI WAS GOING solo on the New York subway. “Ready to go?” asked his mom. “Roger, Mission Control,” said Rashi. Rashi’s mother lived in a house in Queens. His father lived and worked in an apartment in Manhattan. Every Saturday his mom took hi

      2 min read

    • Article

      My Life (second Draft)

      Feb 28, 2023

      It’s early again, and I can hear the train, many miles away, running along the edge of the bay. Since there is no other ambient noise, it is as clear as if it were just down the hill. Until he was born and got older and began to talk all the time abo

      23 min read

    • Article

      Finding her VOICE

      Jan 12, 2022

      Finding her VOICE
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia

      Aug 26, 2022

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia
      5 min read

    • Article

      They Were There For YOU!

      Sep 16, 2019

      They Were There For YOU!
      2 min read

    • Article

      Tanika Gupta

      Mar 17, 2023

      Tanika Gupta
      3 min read

    • Article

      Gap Year GRANDPARENTS

      Aug 19, 2020

      Gap Year GRANDPARENTS
      6 min read

    • Article

      The DREAM

      Mar 25, 2020

      The DREAM
      9 min read

    • Article

      They Were There For YOU!

      Aug 1, 2019

      They Were There For YOU!
      3 min read

    • Article

      Renaissance WOMAN

      Aug 31, 2023

      Renaissance WOMAN
      5 min read

    • Article

      Songs In The Key Of Life

      Dec 4, 2023

      They were two couples, lifelong friends. The wife of one had been dead a few months and the husband of the other had just died, and now they sat together at her dining room table. She asked for advice about the death notice; he had firm ideas about w

      2 min read

    • Article

      Rachael Stirling modern Life

      Apr 25, 2022

      Not many people can say they’ve grown up in the theatre, but actress Rachael Stirling is lucky enough to count herself as one of them. As the daughter of stage and screen star Dame Diana Rigg and theatre producer Archibald Stirling, Rachael was never

      3 min read

    • Article

      I Married My CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART After 56 Years

      May 18, 2021

      Liz Matthews, 68, Ulverstone, Tas Sitting under a tree, I smiled as my friend Ray offered me his lollies. ‘Thanks,’ I grinned, popping one in my mouth. Both nine years old, and on holiday with our families in Altona, Vic, we’d struck up a friendsh

      4 min read

    • Article

      In Bloom

      Dec 1, 2022

      In Bloom
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Writing On THE WALL

      Apr 6, 2021

      The Writing On THE WALL
      6 min read

    • Article

      Play It Again, Pat

      Oct 7, 2020

      Play It Again, Pat
      2 min read

    • Article

      With An Ancestral Link To The Royal Family Rebecca Grant the Actress Tells Of Her Special Meeting With The Prince Of Wales And A Love Story From Glamis Castle

      Nov 15, 2021

      With An Ancestral Link To The Royal Family Rebecca Grant the Actress Tells Of Her Special Meeting With The Prince Of Wales And A Love Story From Glamis Castle
      5 min read

    • Article

      Nina Raine Interview: ‘Why Wasn’t JS Bach Better At Networking?’

      Jul 2, 2021

      If your family was a piece of music, what would it be? For playwright Nina Raine, Johann Sebastian Bach and his clan felt like a fugue: a main theme, with variations woven around it. In fact, the musical form of which he was a master formed the basis

      6 min read

    Reviews for The Girl on the Train

    3.5/5

    5,772 ratings569 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Read this in mostly one sitting just to be rid of it. Drunk people, angry people, unfaithful people and psychopaths. It's a depressing mess of a story where I worked out who the killer was less than half way through simply because we'd met all the characters by then and there were no other solutions for Megan's mystery lover except the policeman. Don't get me wrong, I read a book once where it WAS the bloody policeman. That was really terrible.

      I guess it could have been worse but it wasn't any good.
    • 2/5
      Depressing, unlikeable characters. Fairly suspenseful.
    • 5/5
      An intriguing story that keeps piquing your curiosity and making you read just a bit more.
    • 2/5
      I was on the hold list for this book at the library since it came out, and just got to read it. I wish it was worth the wait, and worth the hype I’d heard in the meantime, but… it’s not. This book falls flat. It’s not a horrible book, and if I hadn’t heard that it was suspenseful and shocking, I might not be as disappointed. But it’s being built up as something it’s not. Rachel takes a train to and from London every day, and, as she passes by the houses, makes up lives for a couple she sees living in her old neighborhood. I had no problem figuring out what Rachel was actually doing on the train, and knew the culprit well before halfway through the book. Nothing about it was shocking or suspenseful. If anything, the book tried too hard to be that way. It was well-written, but frustratingly vague in some areas, and dwelling too long on other matters. It’s a quick read, so if you want to check it out because of the hype, there’s no reason not to. It’s just not what I expected, and not a really great book, period.
    • 4/5
      My 15 year old daughter gave me this book as a Christmas present. She is not a big reader, so I think she probably just picked out whatever had the most hype. I liked the way the story started out with us thinking the narrator was pretty normal, and then turning everything on its head when details of her life come out. By the end of the book, I didn't really care for any of the characters. They all have secrets they are keeping. The point of view changes between the women in the story. The time line also changes. I really had to pay attention to each chapter heading to make sure I understood who was narrating and what year it was. I thought the story was pretty good. I read this pretty quickly. When reading, just go along where the story take you and you will enjoy yourself.
    • 4/5
      The book starts of with Rachel sitting on her daily commuter train to London. Each day the train stops at the same train signal next to a block of houses. Rachel has become used to seeing an attractive couple in one of the houses. She makes up names for the couple (whose real names are Meghan and Scott) and imagines what they must be like. Another house in the same block used to belongs to Rachel and her ex-husband and now is occupied by him and his current wife, Anna, and their baby.Rachel's life has fallen apart. She was fired from her job months ago and is pretending to commute to work daily to hide it from her friend and landlord. She has a serious drinking problem which caused her to be fired. Her drinking started during her failed marriage when she was unable to have a child. She still has feelings for her ex-husband, Tom, and has in the past stalked him and Anna.Soon Meghan disappears and later her body is found. A week before she goes missing, Rachel has seen Meghan kissing another man who turns out to be her psychologist. Rachel, while drunk, was also at the block of houses the night of Rachel's disappearance, but she has a history of blacking out and forgetting events during her drinking binges. Though, or perhaps because, Rachel's own life is a mess she wants to help Scott and Meghan. She goes to the police and contacts Scott, but she is treated with suspicion and disgust by all parties.The book is broken up into many small chapters. Each chapter is told from the point of view of either Rachel, Meghan or Anna. The chapters from Rachel and Anna are in temporal order but the ones by Meghan are several months in the past. The author uses the different points of view of each narrator to slowly add to the information (and confusion) surrounding the missing and later murdered woman.This is a well written book and I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to others. My main, though minor, criticisms with the book are:- First in a suspense or mystery novel the tension should steadily build throughout the book until the climax at the end. But I found little build up of suspense as TGOTR progressed. After the initial disappearance the reader is left at the same level of ignorance or confusion till near the end of the book.- Second I found it was petty obvious who the murderer was by about 3/4 into the book. There just aren't that many characters in the book and some of them are ruled out because we read their first person narrations (and one is ruled because she is the victim).
    • 5/5
      I listened to the audio book version of The Girl on the Train. The story really came alive through the narrator. I enjoyed the POVs the story was told from, and the author did a great job making unlikable characters likable. I definitely recommend this audio book!
    • 3/5
      3.5 Stars. I'd give the last 60 pages 4 stars. I didn't really like any of the characters and thought they all were capable of murder. It was a page turner with some unexpected twists. I'd certainly recommend it to those that like mysteries.
    • 4/5
      Very enjoyable book. Rachel watches a couple everyday as she sees them on their terrace and she is on the commuter train. Soon the woman is missing and ends up murdered. Rachel, who drinks to the point of blacking out, can't remember different times in her life. Her ex-husband lives down the road from the couple. Rachel keeps bugging her ex and his new wife and child. She soon gets involved with the couple's lives and the murder investigation and not in a good way. This book had lots of twists and turns and kept me guessing what happened and who killed Megan. It was not who I thought it would be and it was really interesting what all came to light. I kept trying to guess what really happened. I was rooting for Rachel to stop drinking and to get her life together but I was also sad for her that she just couldn't leave her ex-husband alone. It was a little confusing with the story jumping around with the dates. I just gave up paying attention to the dates because I could tell while reading what was going on where we were at in the story. I highly recommend this book.
    • 3/5
      I listened to the audio version. I'm an older gay man and not particularly politically correct, but the first 250 pages of this book seem to be about how horrible women can be to each other, then the last 50 pages about how horrible straight men can be to women. And the whole thing is about how awful people in London are to each other all the time, and how alienating and depressing it can be (can someone please recommend a novel to me that takes place in London where people are happy and nice to each other sometimes?). As usual, the whole thing pivots on the issues of monogamy and childbearing. The writing is very good, and the narration very talented- couldn't stop listening to it, even though I had no sympathy for a single character (except maybe Kamal or Linda, who is not allowed much of a role). Recommended as a quick read or listen, but not an ounce of joy or enlightenment.
    • 5/5
      This is a hard book to rate. The POV changes every chapter and within each chapter is different dates that are separated between the morning events and the evening events. I sometimes found myself having to flip back and forth between POVs and dates to try and figure out the mystery. I think the story is very well written and the way the dates and POVs are staggered, I found myself just needing to know MORE. I finished the book in about a day and a half (would have been less than that if it wasn't for that blasted thing called work) and once I got towards the end of the book I couldn't put it down because things were happening so quickly. My initial reaction was five stars, but the more I think back on it, I go back and forth between four and five stars. Because of that I will just go to the middle and give this 4.5 stars, which is still a stellar rating nonetheless


      Full review and more at SBSR Book Blog
    • 2/5
      Marvelous descriptive prose detailing the thoughts and feelings of one woman on a train. The challenge in reading this book was to untangle memory from imagination and keeping track of whether the main character is in the present, having a flashback, or hallucinating.
    • 4/5
      I had a hard time getting into this book and put it aside for a few days before trying again. Once I got a few chapters in, I was hooked.

      The story is told from the perspective of 3 characters. Rachel is the Girl on the Train. She is an alcoholic who is divorced and living with a girl from school. She often experiences blackouts. She travels to London every day for work and passes by her old house. She watches her house, where her ex-husband has remarried and has a child, as well as the house down the road. She imagines the couple who she names, in a happy life.

      Emma, the second narrator is the new wife. She does not like that Rachel calls the house and walks by. She wants Tom to call the police and have a restraining order against Rachel. She is worried for their child.

      Megan, the third narrator. This is the woman who Rachel watches from the train. Her life is not as idyllic as Rachel imagines it to be. When Megan goes missing, Rachel insinuates herself into the life of Scott, Megan's husband and the investigation of Megan's disappearance.

      A great suspenseful story of a disappearance and murder. Often compared to Gone Girl, but I think this was a much better book that I really enjoyed.
    • 3/5
      This book has been compared to "Gone Girl" but I found that while the characters were dysfunctional and quite repulsive, "The Girl on the Train" lacked the complexity and chilling suspense that "Gone Girl" had. Told from three women's perspective i found the plot was a bit predictable and it was easy to work out who the murderer was. Overall, an okay read, but don't be expecting another "Gone Girl".
    • 3/5
      I had a hard time getting into this at first. It took me almost a week to almost get through the first half of the book. The second half really picked up the pace, and it was much more suspensful. I could not put it down and finished the second half in one night.This is one of those books you really need to think about after you are done reading it. I want to see the movie now to help me piece together some of the events that occurred. I have so many questions leading up to that ending.
    • 3/5
      The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins. Unsure how I feel about this book. It’s well thought out, decently written, and I can see why it’s had recognition. My personal feelings, however, are I would have preferred this thriller written in third person. First person with multiple viewpoints pulls me out of a story (it’s told by three women) and I wasn’t sure they were distinguishable enough. I guessed the outcome a little over half way through the book, and, though I don’t believe characters should be perfect, that flawed people make for a more interesting read, I found every person in the book thoroughly unlikable so I struggled to care about any of them, and kept searching for more redeeming features. Well plotted and an easy read despite this, but I’m left feeling ambiguous. I want to watch the film, though, to see how they handled the material.
    • 2/5
      Uff, don't bother. A poor man's Gone Girl. Also, I really hate it when the culprit gives a long monologue of "How I Did It" at the end. Major eyeroll....
    • 4/5
      All I can say is WOW! I wasn't originally planning on reading this book when it came out because all I read with the description was "another cliche Gone Girl type novel." Well, it was (in fact, Amazon recommended Gone Girl when I finished this book on my Kindle), but it was a very well-written book. I read it fairly quickly, and I still felt like it wasn't fast enough.

      Once you have read several psychological thrillers, they all tend to become similar. Yet, they are still a favorite of mine. I love the heart racing feeling I get when I'm about to find out something new. I love trying to figure out the ending, reading the clues the author is leaving for us, if only you are careful enough to look. To be truthful, I have loved doing this since I read The Catcher in the Rye 10 years ago, it is just a lot more fun with a psychological thriller than a classic American novel.

      My rating is based on the fact that this book actually kept me guessing, that I was hooked from page 2, and that I felt like it wasn't just another cliche book, and actually had a lot of depth and thought put into it. I hesitate to rate if five stars, because something in me just doesn't feel like it was that good, but I also do not know what would make it worth the five star review. Read on if you have already read the book and/or you don't mind potential spoilers.

      ***spoilers below this line***
      I was able to figure out pretty early on that certain character traits about Rachel just didn't add up. For example, she was supposedly a violent drunk, but after we meet her, she seems to only get injured while drunk. Red flag number one. Also, the "unreliable witness" thing was pretty played up, so I knew that some of the details she was walking through with herself had to be true, if slightly altered.

      About halfway through the book, I knew it was someone in *that* house who had committed the crime. I just couldn't figure out if it was angry man or jealous wife. I was actually hoping for the jealous wife, I don't know why. I just thought it would be a nice full-circle type ending to the relationship between Anna and Rachel. But then, I was also hoping for angry man because that would exonerate Rachel's past, and admittedly I was in love with her.

      It was sort of a disappointment to me to realize so early on that it was obviously neither Scott nor Kamal who committed the crime. Neither of them fit the bill, Scott was angry, but we knew Scott was innocent if for no other reason than that would make a horrible story for Rachel to narrate. I almost wish there had been more detail of Rachel and Scott, Rachel and Kamal, flashbacks to Rachel and Tom, something that brought us into Rachel's mind when she was with these three men, something that allows the reader to really feel what she is feeling when she is with them, not just what she is remembering later. I realize that is sort of the point of the book, I mean the woman drinks gin and tonic from a can.

      At the end of the day, I think that Hawkins did a great job crafting this story, and I imagine there are so many details that got scrapped and so much more that the author knew than what made it into the story. I felt like I was watching these people from the train, from the underpass, from wherever, trying to catch a glimpse of their true selves. And they were all just characters in a novel whose stories are over now.
    • 3/5
      It is the debut novel by author Paula Hawkins .The story revolves around the lives of three women: Rachel, Anna and Megan.The protagonist, Rachel, is in her early 30s and she is Jobless•Homeless •Alcoholic•Divorced. Even after being jobless, she takes the 8:04 train to the city everyday. The train stops at same signal, from where she can see the house of a couple in her old neighbourhood. She idealises this couple (christened as Jess and Jason) and imagines their life. Her fantasy goes haywire when Jess goes missing.“To have my hopes raised and dashed again, it’s like cold steel twisting inside my gut”.~ Paula Hawkins, The girl on the train.That’s what I felt while reading the first few chapters of the book. If you are someone who likes fast paced novels then you will need a lot of patience to read this as it will pickup the pace only after you are halfway through the book. In the beginning, it will be a bit confusing too and will have to go back to previous pages but once into the book, it will be simply irresistible. The first person narration by the three female characters and their multiple view points on the same scenario makes it quite interesting. The plot is intelligently written with lots of twists and an end that is totally unpredictable.
    • 5/5
      The book club that I am a member of chose this book to read for the month of October. I was hesitant. It really isn't my preferred genera. Initially I had started the book, couldn't get passed the first chapter, and was dreading reading it. Then one day I picked it up and decided to give it another go. I am THRILLED that I gave it another try! Once I gave it a proper shot, the characters fell into place and I was quickly swept up into the story. Normally I am able to figure out where the book is taking me, but in this instance I didn't get it sorted out until just before the end. The author does a very good job at keeping the reader guessing and engaged in the entire story line. I read through the book all in one night, I just could not set it down. I am very happy that I got over myself and picked it up again, I would have missed out on a wonderful story and author had I not.
    • 4/5
      I am sure we will see much more out of Paula Hawkins in the future. The Girl on the Train is Hawkins' first published book and a good one at that. It was an easy and quick read after getting used to the jumps in time and the different perspectives from Anna, Rachel and Megan. This book reminded me of Gone Girl in a lot of ways. One common theme is that a spouse can turn out to be a crazy psycho murderer without any warning. Congrats to Paula Hawkins on her first book. I will be on the lookout for the next one.
    • 4/5
      wow- talk abt a book hangover - I've got one from staying up too late reading this, and I am also not quite ready yet
      to move on to another story while these characters are still so alive in my mind - why ?

      I think this provides a stinging female narrative perspective, similar to under the volcano, yet cloaked in genre tropes to make the medicine go down

      the other story it reminded me of a bit was Roffey's white woman on the green bicycle.








    • 5/5
      I loved this book. It's an "unreliable witness" psychological thriller that will keep you guessing the whole way through. It switches between first-person narrative of three of the main characters, keeping things bubbling along nicely. Thoroughly enjoyable.
    • 3/5
      90% of this is really good. The last 10% is comparatively a let down.
    • 3/5
      I saw the movie before I watched the book, so I had that perspective before I read the book. Usually, I do it the opposite way. I thought the movie was pretty faithful to the book. There was some good and some bad in the novel. I thought the plot was fairly intricate. I also liked the shifting perspectives and the unreliable narrator in Rachel. It made the mystery aspect of it better.The biggest problem in the novel was characterization. Specifically, none of the three female viewpoint characters was remotely likeable. I don’t know which was one more loathsome. For a while I was thinking it was Rachel, but I think Anna was ultimately even less likeable. And the male characters weren’t much better. Scott was a creep as was Anna’s husband was even worse. The only redeemable character was the psychiatrist. So, when bad things happened to these characters, it was hard to sympathize with any of them. I thought this novel could have been so much more, but without good characters, it just wasn’t all that captivating.Carl Alves – author of Battle of the Soul
    • 1/5
      I don't know what all the fuss was about this book. It was very boring and held no mystery for me. I thought it a waste of time. Looking at reviews I think many people who gave it 5 stars may have never read a real mystery book . I had figured out the plot very early on and plodded on to the end. I tend to shy away from books like these that are 'wildly acclaimed'. They tend to be dull and boring. Maybe reading 'All The Light We Cannot See' about the same time contributed to my dislike of this book as I found All The Light...' a very interesting read.
    • 4/5
      This book is great. It is definitely a page turner. I recommend it for fans of Gillian Flynn.
    • 4/5
      It's very much like the movie, which kinda spoils it a bit, but it's still a good read getting the full story. If you're into thrillers, this is another one of those which, like "Gone Girl" or "The Couple Next Door," is one of the newer must-reads in the genre. For better or worse, they're kinda shaping the newest crop of bestsellers in a big way, which is rather interesting to see unfold as well. So, it's worth the time on multiple fronts.
    • 3/5
      ''One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.''

      When I started The Girl On The Train, I had no expectations at all. I had read some reviews, but I've learned my lesson. I try to approach hyped books with indifference, because in 8 cases out of 10, I end up hugely disappointed. It didn't happen with this one.

      Let me admit that one of the first things I noticed was the fact that Hawkins makes fun of the ''hands-around- Starbucks'' culture that seems to be the hype of our times. It was a big plus in my book. Superficial? Perhaps, but one needs to be honest.

      Now, the characters. Allow me to enter the state of rant here. (Don't worry, it's going to be low on the Richter scale, I promise.) I don't care much whether a book is loaded with unsympathetic
      characters or not. Where thrillers are concerned, I don't care whether I connect to them. (I'd be worried if I did). For various reasons. First, I don't want to marry the characters, I want to read about them. Then, I believe that they are much more realistic. The world is full of ''unsympathetic'' people, we're not in Paradise. After all, I remember something that the great Ian McShane has said: ''We don't call them evil characters any longer, thank you, we call them complex individuals.'' So, as long as they're not cut-out villains, I am fine with them. And it is crime fiction we're talking about.

      This book is choke-full of people that are anything but sympathetic. And it's okay. However, with one exception, the rest are disturbed, highly problematic individuals. Rachel is the unreliable narrator, and as such, she works wonders, because there were many instances where I simply couldn't believe the slightest thing she said. In my opinion, she is a really memorable character. Her mind is full of jammed memories, questions and thoughts, and she contradicts herself all too often.

      And this brings me to the last thing I want to focus on. The writing. I appreciated the fact that Hawkins uses a clear, sharp language each time we enter the thoughts of a POV character. There are no frivolities in those inner monologues, the prose is eerie, almost haunting in parts. BUT. There is a significant BUT. The dialogue isn't on the same level, in my opinion. I wanted it to be equally sharp and minimalistic. Instead, there are many occassions where a character talks to the point of exhaustion, in a language that is uninspired, almost wooden. When someone would hesitate, you'd read examples like these: ''I just...just wanted to help'' or ''I remember something...something that...'', etc. It may work in the context of the oral language, but it becomes really annoying in its written presentation. Especially, when it is repeated again and again.

      So, a thriller is a thriller. It it makes me care for the completion of the story, for the fate of the characters, then I consider it succesful. Is The Girl on the Train a masterpiece? Certainly not. Is it interesting? Absolutely. I don't know if the hype is justified, but I know that I had fun reading it.

    • 4/5
       This book came out shortly after Gone Girl (and during a time when all books started having the word 'girl' in their titles), and people were raving about it calling it the next Gone Girl, which it wasn't. That being said, it was still a good thriller with a bit of a twist that I think some people saw coming, but still entertaining enough.