A Book A Week

"I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head."

There is no denying that one of last year's "it" books was The Girl on the Train by debut author Paula Hawkins. Everywhere I looked, it seemed people were reading the book! Amongst my fellow reviewers, reaction to the novel was pretty polarizing. They either loved it or couldn't even stand to finish it. I'll admit that I had a slight aversion to jumping on the band wagon. I've voiced my disapproval of book's that contain the word "girl" in the title just to draw a comparison to Gone Girl. I feared that this would be yet another subpar imitation of that novel. As I started reading it, however, I soon found that I couldn't have been more mistaken.

Life has been hard on Rachel. The grief of not being able to conceive a child eventually took its toll on her marriage. As depression settled in, Rachel turned to alcohol to ease the pain. Her husband turned to another woman. Now, Rachel's life is nothing more than a mundane routine of work and self medication. Each morning she rides the train to work, passing the home she once shared. For a brief instance, she can see into the homes of her former neighborhood. One young couple in particular draws her attention, and she begins to fantasize about their seemingly perfect life.

This voyeuristic curiosity soon begins to take over Rachel's life. She looks forward to her twice daily glimpse into the couple's perfect relationship. Besides alcohol, the story of Jason and Jess (names that Rachel has assigned) becomes her escape from the depression that clouds her mind. Soon reality invades Rachel's fantasy and shatters the idealistic narrative that that she constructed. The Jess has gone missing and the Jason seems to be the primary suspect. Determined to help the couple and to preserve the one part of her life that is positive, Rachel contacts the police to tell them about everything she has watched. But how can the police trust the word of someone who has never even met the couple? More so, how can they seriously consider the word of a woman who gets blackout drunk every evening?

In The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins uses an unreliable narrator to cloud her otherwise straightforward thriller into a murky mirage of uncertainty. Through her consistently inconsistent recollections, Rachel attempts to string together a narrative that is mired in alcohol induced chasms. For her part, Hawkins does an admiral job getting us to care for Rachel. She is a character who seems to be the sole enabler of her misfortunes, but the backstory that Hawkins provides gives her both depth and sympathy. Even though I guessed the conclusion a few pages before it was revealed, the pulse pounding suspense that permeated every moment toward that discovery more than made up for that flaw. The Girl on the Train is a cleverly plotted novel that deserves every bit of the acclaim it has received. If this debut is any indication of things to come in Hawkins career, I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads.

(2016, 19)

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is not an easy book to begin. From the start, readers are treated to the horrifying description of Susie Salmon's death. The year is 1973, and fourteen-year-old Susie is walking home from school. As she crosses the corn field that separates the school from her suburban neighborhood, she is stopped by her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. He tells her of a small fort that he has dug into the ground of the field. Something about the situation doesn't feel right to Susie, but her curiosity gets the better of her. As she enters the ramshackle lair, Mr. Harvey reveals his true intentions.

Amidst calls from Susie's mother to come to dinner, Harvey gags the girl, rapes her, murders her, and mutilates her body. As her family begins to worry about her whereabouts, Mr. Harvey is collapsing the subterranean hideaway, placing her dismembered body into an old safe, and tossing it into the local sinkhole. The graphic brutality of the opening of this novel is not easy to stomach. There is no sugarcoating the violence that Susie endures. As she narrates every detail of the ordeal, readers suffer through the agonizing torture as if it were their own.

Thankfully, this gruesome prologue gives way to an enthralling story that explores the despair, regret, and imbalance of emotions that comes with death. Susie narrates the entire novel from heaven. We learn that each person has their own unique version of heaven, one that contains the places and things that they love and desire. Residents of this afterlife can overlap into other peoples' heavens, depending on their version. Susie soon meets other young girls and even has a run in with her deceased Grandfather. But there are limitations to this hereafter as well. Despite her deepest wishes, Susie will never age. She will never grow into the young woman that she could have been. Frozen in time at the exact age that she was at the time of her death, Susie begins to observe the people that she left behind.

From her perch in the great beyond, Susie sees her parents, struggling to cope with the death of their eldest daughter while maintaining their relationship for the sake of their younger two children. She watches her father shatter an office full of bottled ships that the two built together. Her mother slowly retreats from her position as the family matriarch, and her eccentric grandmother moves into the house to take the reigns.  Her sister feels the burden of loss as the teachers and children at school all look to her with pity and remorse. And her youngest brother, too young to even comprehend the gravity of the situation, begins to speak to his missing sister.

She looks in on her classmates as well. The only boy she ever kissed, the quiet girl who sensed Susie's presence as she transitioned from one world to the next, both kids are haunted by the loss of their friend. Susie begins the "what if" questions, wondering where her relationship with the boy could have gone, how her friendship with the girl could have grown. The descriptions of these students show the ways in which Susie's death rocked not only her family, but the entire community.

Finally, she observes her killer. Mr. Harvey tries to move on with his life. As she witnesses her father confront the man about his strange behavior, Susie, comes to a stunning realization. She was not his first victim! She sees into his past and discovers the origins of the monster he became. While part of her wants revenge against the man, the purity of her soul overcomes these willful intentions. Mostly, she wants to see justice for herself and the other victims. As her father and sister begin to grow more suspicious of Harvey, Susie wills them to discover the obscure clues that he left behind.

Sebold writes a remarkable tale of love, loss, and legacy. As Susie watches her family grieve, love, and ultimately move on, the reader feels the emotion of each character through the girl's plain spoken, yet mature observations. The end brings an unnecessary subplot of spiritual possession that nearly reaches the over sentimentality of a bad romantic story. Even this minor bump in the narrative does not deter from the brilliant authenticity of the rest of the novel. This story of transition and acceptance, both by the deceased narrator and the people she left behind, is the kind of tale that will keep readers up late in the night. First to finish the book and then to reflect upon the rich, haunting, and hopeful experience that it provides.

For more information, visit the authors website, Amazon, and GoodReads.

(2015, 25)

Nick and Amy Dunne seem like the perfect couple. Living a dream life in New York, the pair of writers appear to have it all. She, a stunning blonde, star of her parent's children book series, and writer of magazine quizzes, is the perfect mix of brains and beauty. He, good looking, smart journalist, with the perfect wife to match, is the stereotypical all American boy. Together, they live their perfect life in their perfect home. But all that changes when both are laid off from their journalism jobs. With no viable job prospect in the city, Nick decides that they should move to his childhood hometown in  Missouri, where both of his health stricken parents and twin sister Margo live. Amy reluctantly agrees.

On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick is at the bar that he owns with Margo. He is contemplating the inevitable anniversary scavenger hunt, a quirky and romantic tradition that has Nick retrace the steps of the couple's relationship, when he receives a courtesy phone call from his neighbor alerting him that his front door is ajar. Concerned, he comes home to discover that some furniture has been knocked over, and that Amy is nowhere to be found. Immediately, the police are notified, and an investigation ensues.

Through Amy's diary entries, we learn that their picture perfect marriage was anything but. These entries alternate with accounts of the ongoing investigation from Nick's perspective. As the authorities and 24/7 news networks delve deeper into the case, Nick's story begins to break down, making him the prime suspect in Amy's disappearance. With Nick continuing to profess his innocence, the entire community begins to question how well they know the people who surround them each day.

This is a first rate thriller from top to bottom. Each character is crafted with the kind of gray morality that both mimics real life and provides plenty of natural misdirection throughout the story. Flynn reveals  the flaws in everyday people, and places them into situations that bring horror into their mundane lives. Many reviewers have found the ending to be disappointing. I also was a bit taken aback by the way the narrative wraps up, but after contemplating it for a while, the ending seems to be inevitable. In the end, Flynn does not give us the tidy package that we have come to expect from similar novels. Instead, she maintains the dark and twisted nature that reality too often provides. This novel definitely deserves all the hype and acclaim it has received, and I highly recommend it.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and GoodReads.

(2014)