(2.5 Stars) 
 I'm still going back and forth trying to decide how I feel about Paula Hawkins' "The Girl on the Train." Maybe I went in with too high of expectations since it's been receiving rave reviews with several people comparing it to "Gone Girl." For me, it was a letdown. 
 "The Girl on the Train" is a story centered on Rachel Watson, an alcoholic who everyday takes a commuter train that passes her old house where her ex-husband and his new wife now live blissfully together. A couple doors over lives another seemingly happy couple who Rachel feels she's come to know from watching them each day, so much so that she names them "Jason" and "Jess." One blackout and one disappearance later, Rachel finds herself drawn into a criminal investigation that finally gives her life purpose. Did she see something that could crack the case and solve the great mystery? 
 The story is told from three points of view that alternate and sometimes jump back in time. This was one of the book's positive aspects as the changing viewpoints helped keep the action fresh. The narrative would have quickly become dull if the entire story was told from the point of view of Rachel, a character who overall was very annoying and frustrating. She's an alcoholic, yes, but her selfish tendencies and nosiness come off as pathetic and infuriating. A good portion of her chapters involve her either lying, sticking her nose in places it didn't belong, or waking up wondering what she did the night before. She convinces herself that she has a place in this story and then passes judgment on the other characters. The characters in this book are certainly dislikeable, but Rachel is no victimized angel, either. 
 The mystery itself was pretty good. I guessed early on where the dots would connect, but I never had the true explanation for "why" until the end of the book. One thing I don't understand is how people could call this a psychological thriller. The book wasn't psychological at all, in my opinion. The writing was pretty shallow and jumbled with no serious or deep reflective moments. I figured this was the author's way of trying to keep the novel fast-paced, mysterious, and seemingly unfiltered, but it came across to me as trying too hard. It had nowhere near the same lasting impact on me as, say, "Gone Girl," which had far more psychological, thought-provoking narratives. As for the "thriller" part, the action in this book never picked up until the last 30 pages. I actually had problems staying attentive for the first 50% of the book because I thought it was rather boring. 
 The book did touch on some aspects of isolation that echo the pillars of literary modernism (i.e. the way Rachel longs for human interaction and a purpose in life), and I found this intriguing, but I was just too put off by the characters to make up for it. 
 Overall, "The Girl on the Train" wasn't the book that I thought it would be, and I don't say that in a good way. It had some positive aspects and multiple parts where I thought perhaps it was on the cusp of greatness, but it unfortunately never went there.