A Different Point of View

Jessie Young
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins

Ever wonder how someone else sees you? Or maybe, if the way you see someone is the way they actually are? This is what the book The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins is all about. There is a girl who takes a train to London to work every day. She sees the same surroundings all the time. So much that she decided to make a perfect life, combing her imagination with real life. On page 10, it says “they’re a match. They’re a set. They’re happy, I️ can tell.” She sees this in ways other people wouldn't. On page 12, she says "I see them as others do not;" This is what she uses to get out of her own life, which was perfect just two years ago. So much happened to her in those two years, and it's very depressing. But then you see the real life of someone from her perfect life that she sees every day out the train window. You see just how not-perfect it is. Her life is actually falling apart similar to the way the girl on the train’s did. On page 18, it says “ my days feel empty now I️ don’t have a gallery to go to any longer. I️ really miss it.” She doesn’t have the life she wishes she still had, like the girl on the train feels.

I do very much recommend this book. It is definitely a 10/10. I find it very interesting that it shows two different opinions and views on each other's life. The girl on the train thinks that the girl out the window has everything a girl could ever want. I perfect family, perfect house, perfect wardrobe. But really, it’s quite the opposite. She doesn’t have a healthy relationship. She has nothing to do with her time. Her house is old and boring. This book shows me that there is always more behind the scenes. It very clearly shows the theme “don’t judge a book by its cover” because the girl on the train thinks very highly of a person how isn’t nearly that perfect. This would be a very good book for people who like realistic fiction and are 14 and up. There are some swears and adult content, but I think it is necessary to show the life these people are living behind the scenes of the people they come across every day. It shows the life they try to hide from others so they don’t feel so ashamed of their lives because both of them are just falling apart. I have not yet finished the book so I cannot say how their problems become resolved. But I certainly plan on finishing it because the author is very good at keeping the reader intrigued, as I️ am.

I think that the way the author wrote the story definitely adds an effect to the story and the way it is told. They tell it more as memories than their life as it happens. A lot of the time, the main characters look back in their life at the better times or at the time they wish they were still in. They compare it to the lives they have now and how much they wish they were their old selves. Thye author made a smart decision on how to write this story and it made me like the book more because I haven't come across a book written this way and I like it. So I believe that this is a book many people will enjoy and learn from and I very much recommend it.