From the Stacks: "The Girl on the Train' is non-stop thrill ride

"The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins
"The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins

Rachel rides the train into London every day, even though she no longer has a job to go to. She fantasizes about a couple she sees along the way. Jess and Jason are the perfect, loving couple in Rachel's eyes. She needs a perfect couple to look up to because there is nothing positive in her life at the moment. Not only has she lost her job, but she also lost her husband, who now has a new wife and a baby.

Rachel drinks to drive away the darkness, but the darkness just comes along for the ride with the alcohol. She has days where she blacks out and has no idea what she has done, although she knows it is almost always horrible. Then one day she discovers that Jess, whose real name is Megan, is missing. This occurs the day after Rachel saw Megan kissing someone who was not her husband, Scott. Rachel decides she has to come forward and tell the police and Scott what she saw. But does anyone believe Rachel? She is an extremely unreliable witness who seems to have things to hide.

The story goes between Rachel's dark investigation into what happened and a look at Megan's past and the days leading up to her disappearance. Riddled throughout are chapters from Anna's point of view - Anna is the new wife of Tom, Rachel's ex-husband, who hates Rachel with a passion and used to have Megan as her babysitter.

This book has gotten a lot of hype, and most of it is well deserved. I read this book in one sitting and couldn't put it down. The characters are all hiding something, and we really don't know what is going on until the very end. It seems that all the main characters, from Rachel to Anna to Tom to Scott and a few in between, are all suspects in Megan's disappearance at one time or another. I liked how everyone's lives became entwined with each other. It is a non-stop thrill ride to the very end, when we figure out what exactly has been going on with these characters.

Fans of Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl" will surely want to read this new thriller.

Angie Bayne is the Children's Department manager at Missouri River Regional Library.