It seems like, at some point, maybe during last Summer, everyone was reading this. I finally caught up with it recently. It is fast paced, entertaining, but, in spite of the glowing remarks, it was not as satisfying as I hoped it would be.
What grabbed me initially was that someone--most likely, Rachel--was struggling with mental illness. By the time I finished the book I concluded that, save for the baby, Evie, there was not sane person in the story. And who knows what Evie will face, after what she has been living under. Babies may not know, but they absorb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had hoped the three women narrating--Rachel, Anna, and Megan--would all turn out to be the same person, and that this was some chronicle as schizophrenia. It turns out to be much simpler--and more predictable than that--which I hated, plus once Megan enters the story, she drops some clues that point to what is actually going on--and I figured it out! The climax was suspenseful, but ho hum, as the perpetrator was not an unusual suspect, but a typical one.
So, I cannot endorse this as a great book. Gillian Flynn's stuff is darker and more challenging. But Paula Hawkins does know how to construct a thriller. What she does not know how to do is speak in different voices, for, though she tries here, everyone sounds the same. It takes skill to do this, and she needs to hone that skill if she wants to make the gimmick work.
Maybe she will abandon it for her next book, which I am eager to read. Remember, I did not go crazy over Julia Glass' first book, "Three Junes." But, once I read "The Whole World Over," I went on to the others, with increasing enjoyment. So, first time out does not always mean a triumph. I have enough faith in Paula Hawkins to read whatever she concocts next.
But the train ride here is far better than the actual arrival!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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