StorieLuver Review of The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train (2016)

How one person's selfishness can destroy multiple lives

[10/10 · 21 January 2018]

By titling the book and movie "The GIRL on the Train" and making Rachel the narrator/protagonist, the audience is fooled into thinking this is Rachel's story, when really it isn't. This is TOM's story, and how his selfishness and single-minded pursuit of his own wants and desires ruins other people's lives. So here's a summary of the story, when you retell it from Tom's perspective: Tom wants the stereotypical perfect suburban life with the stay-at-home wife and 2.5 kids. He marries Rachel, but it turns out she can't give him children. So rather than adopt (because they wouldn't be "his" children, which I believe the book did point out), Tom starts cheating on Rachel and lets her become a raging alcoholic. Tom divorces Rachel, leaving her life a total shambles, and moves on to marry Anna, who promptly produces the baby he wants. When Anna then starts to focus on the baby rather than Tom, he starts ANOTHER affair with Megan (because of course, it's still all about Tom and what he wants). Unfortunately for Megan, who doesn't want children because of a trauma in her past, she becomes pregnant with Tom's child. Well, Tom can't have a pregnant mistress ruining his "happy" marriage with Anna, so he murders the inconvenient mistress. And that, in a nutshell, is the real plot line of this story. So what is the role of the girl on the train, other than to be the discarded, barren first wife who turns to alcoholism to deal with the loss of her husband and home? In an act of karma, she gets to witness (from her train) a piece of evidence which draws her into Megan's disappearance/murder and ultimately bring Tom to the justice he so richly deserves.