The Girl on the Train has had a lot of hype.

With this in mind, I waxed and waned in my feelings towards it while reading it. It has been compared to Gone Girl (which I hated, I must say) and aside from my own feelings about Gillian Flynn’s book, it’s not that fair a comparison. Aside from them both being tragic mystery-type novels, and having female protagonists, they have little in common.

I do tend to like anything with strong female characters so I had been surprised at my reaction to Gone Girl, but there you go. I am not a fan of violence and that definitely impacted on my opinion on it. This book, however, lacks that level of violent detail, which is a very good thing.

While it took a while to really get into the narrative and characters, its saving grace was in its vastly improved final quarter. To start with, the work is a bit of a struggle – its pace was slow and meandering; a fairly drawn out exposition. But to its, and author Paula Hawkins’ credit, the pace picks up considerably, and it draws the reader in to the point of it being captivating and highly engaging towards the end. The book is written from the perspective of three characters, all women, in the form of diary entries to one degree or another. Hawkins’ skills are very evident in this regard as this narrative structure is carried off very well.

As a girl who – in her youth – may have had a few nights where a few too many drinks were consumed to the point of blacking out; maybe the occasional night, or nights where I had no memories at all, and often felt panicked about these, I had something in common with Rachel, the titular girl of The Girl on the Train. I had some sympathy for her in that particular regard, but she seemed to have given up on everything else, so I struggled to like her through most of the book. Again, with full credit to Hawkins, by the novel’s end I was a big supporter. I distinctly disliked Anna – whose character was never really fleshed out, and I was largely indifferent to Megan, the third of the book’s female troika.

I liked the premise of The Girl on the Train: watching people’s lives from a train window and feeling like you know them, only to realise that you don’t know them at all – you don’t even know the people whose lives are intertwined with yours. Its twists and turns and double blinds keep you on the edge of your seat, mostly, and I would recommend this book to anyone whose mental journeys wander to the possibilities found in the lives of those they see on daily commutes.

It remains to be seen though, if you really can connect with the book without the first-hand experience of having gotten fall-down, black out drunk. It may not be as relatable.