Out of the Hype Comes Real Quality!

I come at this from the probably fairly rare perspective of someone who has never read The Girl on the Train. Simply too many books too little time. That said even I was never going to fail to miss the hype surrounding it and the film which I have also managed to let pass me by somehow. However, the hype around both meant that the pressure on Paula Hawkins to deliver with this book must have been immense.

What struck me very quickly about this one is that it is most definitely not a rushed out second book to ride the wave of popularity. Rather, it's a well-constructed and thought out thriller that came over very differently to the kind of story that I had imagined.

It's partly a one-way conversation from one estranged sister to another. It pokes very hard at the psychology of grief and childhood problems and at how misplaced loyalty and bias can have telling consequences. From a brutal but intriguing start this moves from one point of view to another gently hinting and probing at the multi-layered mystery underneath.

The cast are by and large very good, giving great individuality to the characters as you would expect from top quality narrators like Weyman and Church. That said, I did feel that one of the narrators was a bit weaker than the others. The one additional small weakness of having more narrators in this format was that of course it meant that some of the main characters were voiced differently by the different narrators which jarred just a little.

So, out of all the hype and from under the undoubted mountain of expectation Paul Hawkins has produced an excellent mystery. It has a large cast of well-conceived characters and you will need to concentrate more than some books to get the best out of it but it genuinely is worth it.

92 people found this helpful

Don't bother.

Unlike most people I was never that impressed by the girl on the train. So when I saw this book I was slightly apprehensive about purchasing it. I thought I'd give the author a second chance and really wish I hadn't.

This book is infuriating, completely ridiculous, unbelievable characters. You know what this is about? Miscommunication, that's it. If the characters weren't so pathetic at communicating half of the events wouldn't have occurred. I had about three hours left and had to return it before I ripped my hair out.

Non of the characters are likeable and just infuriate you with their complete stupidity.

I will never read anything by this author again in the future.

52 people found this helpful

Disappointing

The narration is good, but the story is all over the place and the characters never came alive to me and none were very sympathetic. Too contrived. Wouldn't recommend – and I loved The Girl on the Train

35 people found this helpful

Confusing and un-engaging!

I persevered for 7 hours, but I have to give-up with 4 1/2 to go. There are too many characters and too many narrators. I quite like the character Jules and could have really engaged with her if only she wasn't repeatedly lost amongst all of the others. Beyond that I couldn't care about any character, most were superficially drawn. Several chapters were devoted to various character's dream sequences, others devoted to stories of women drowned as Witches in times gone by. Listening felt like being slow walked to an epiphany. However, I fear there won't really be one. Finally, the repeated flicking between first and third character, together with the large number of supposingly significant characters contributing to making the story confusing.

The narration was mostly good, but the Geordie accents voiced by a female narrator (not Imogen Church) were a bit OTT and forced.

27 people found this helpful

Unfortunately not a good choice for an audio book!

I didn’t think this book was very good; especially when compared (as it inevitably will be) to The Girl on the Train. The key problem was there were simply too many narrators. I counted at least 11, if you don’t include Nell’s writing about what happened in 1920 as a separate narrative voice.
Now, in a regular book this many narrators would confuse and annoy me, but in an audio book it was almost impossible to understand what was going on and who was telling the story. If you left it for a week and then came back in there was no way to know who you were listening to, and I had to think really hard which character linked to the name announced at the start of each chapter. In the end I had to listen to a lot of the book on one day, just to be able to keep track.
Most of the vocal performances were good, but unfortunately none of the characters had a distinct enough narrative voice to enable you to realise who was narrating at any given moment. This made the book an extremely bad choice for my first attempt at enjoying an audio book. Thankfully all the threads came together in the end, but I found the conclusion fairly obvious. A lot of the time I only kept listening because there was an element of mystery at the heart of the story. I think it’s a shame that none of the characters were likeable and a good concept was ruined by a bad telling.

23 people found this helpful

So disappointed 😔 awful

I am so disappointed with this . I had high expectations.,the characters jumped around so much and didn't make sense at times
Boring mismatch and sometimes the narration sounded the same and I had to stop and think who was what. It certainly for me was not a listen that you could get lost in .....
So so disappointed 😔

21 people found this helpful

Does not deserve all the hype, huge let down

Would you try another book written by Paula Hawkins or narrated by the narrators?

Perhaps.

What was most disappointing about Paula Hawkins’s story?

Rambling, pointless, confusing. Tried several attempts to get interested, to no avail.
Hugely disappointing.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Too many voices for pretty boring characters. Narrative doesn't warrant such excellent performers.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

All three emotions.

Any additional comments?

No.

19 people found this helpful

Utter disappointment

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A better book, I am afraid.

What could Paula Hawkins have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Thrown the first draft away and started again.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of the narrators?

Little Mix?

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

It was easy to return and get my credit back

17 people found this helpful

A great page turner. I loved it.

Paula Hawkins had a lot to live up to, following the huge success of The Girl On the Train. But in this story I felt she managed to achieve a story of considerable depth and complexity.

Told from various viewpoints and in several different voices, this is a story that gives an account of the mystery surrounding the death of a woman in a notorious Drowning Pool. But did she drown in an accident or was she killed?

Several people fall under suspicion, including the local policeman in charge of the investigation. The narrative twists and turns, exploring the motives and background of all those who fall under suspicion.

A great, satisfying end too. Excellent narrators gave the story a compulsive quality; I couldn't stop listening.

16 people found this helpful

Woeful

I honestly cannot believe this book is from the same author as "The Girl On The Train".

There are simply too many characters in this book and I did not care about a single one. I could not understand their motivations or actions because without exception every single character lacked any real depth or personality. I found the switching between first and third person completely jarring and unnecessary which led to a quite frankly miserable listening experience.

This is such a disappointing book and I persevered with it for far longer than I normally would have done and made far more allowances with the book (especially early one where the book is downright ponderous) purely on the strength of the author's previous work. However in the end I simply could not justify spending any more time trudging through such an unenjoyable work of literature and returned this book with 3 hours to go.

Paula Hawkins next work will have to be a unequivocal return to the standard of writing displayed in her debut before I even consider reading a single word of hers again.

13 people found this helpful