The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins 3.5 / 5	Published 2015 First Sentence "She's buried beneath a silver birch tree, down towards the old train tracks, her grave marked with a cairn."
Publisher's Description: A debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives. Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost. And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good? A compulsively readable, emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller that draws comparisons to Gone Girl, The Silent Wife, or Before I Go to Sleep, this is an electrifying debut embraced by readers across markets and categories.
Dear Reader, Augh, another too-hyped book that I found to be a letdown! I have to stop getting myself so excited for these books! Ninety-nine percent of the time, they don't live up to their accolades. (But at least there are those who do, and they often make up for the others.) Don't get me wrong - Troy can attest, I couldn't put this book down all weekend, nor could I stop talking about it. But! I felt like the "big reveal" was rather predictable much earlier on, and that the whole rest of the book was kind of...pointless. I didn't need to know that much about how everything wrapped up. I just needed to know the how & the why. I loved the premise of this book - hearing about it on a webinar last November, I was eager to pick it up, imagining a modern-day Rear Window (one of my favorite Jimmy Stewarts). And it started off with a ton of promise, as the reader got to know Rachel's sad life (and indulge in a little schadenfreude). We could understand the frustration & helplessness she felt (especially those of us who had been through that situation, in one form or another). We sympathized with the situation she found herself in, and could see why she would want to allow herself the escape of becoming a bit too nosy about the life of  another couple ("the perfect couple"). That she didn't know them at all just made it easier for her to invent perfection. So when things go downhill quickly for "Jess & Jason", it makes sense that Rachel feels a connection to them, a responsibility to help out where she can. I enjoyed how the book flipped between the narration of three women, all of whom were tied together through Rachel. Their unique voices helped shape the story, and seeing things from their perspectives really changed my sympathies and alignments as time went on. I was solidly pro-Rachel the whole book, but felt various amounts of sympathy for the other two. I think this book is great for those who enjoyed Gone Girl and Before I Go to Sleep and other similar thrillers; it certainly is engrossing and a great weekend read! I just...wasn't all that won over by it, in the end. Unfortunately! Yours, Arianna

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The Light Between Oceans

The Light Between Oceans M.L. Stedman 4.5 / 5	Published 2012 First Sentence "On the day of the miracle, Isabel was kneeling at the cliff's edge, tending the small, newly made driftwood cross."
Publisher's Description: The debut of a stunning new voice in fiction--a novel both heartbreaking and transcendent  After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.  Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom's judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.  M. L. Stedman's mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel's decision to keep this "gift from God." And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another's tragic loss.  The Light Between Oceans is exquisite and unforgettable, a deeply moving novel.
Dear Reader, I adore creative works which impel me to ask, "What would I do in the same situation?"  This books was certainly one of those, and I think that's a large part of why I loved it so much.  Granted, the writing was also beautiful and haunting, which made this move from a really good book to a great one.  I can see why it is beloved by many. Tom begins his postwar career as the lighthouse keeper in a remote southwestern Australia outpost, and he is lucky to make the acquaintance of Isabel, the love of his life.  She is willing to move to the island to live with him in isolation, and everything goes beautifully until the couple begins to experience miscarriages.  Isabel is broken from the experience of losing her babies (three times, no less!), and therefore it seems almost to make sense when she wants to keep a strange infant who washes up on shore one day.  Against his best judgment, Tom grudgingly agrees to this, even while he worries that the baby might have family that is waiting for her return.  Since the couple is so very separated from society and visits the mainland only every few years, it is easy for them to pass off the newborn as their own. Yet Tom's conscience begins to sink its teeth in and not let go, even while Isabel continues to fight to keep the child that they have both grown to love so much.  Izzy can internally rationalize her own situation so well that when there is the threat of Lucy being taken away from her, Isabel feels the righteous anger of a birth mother.  So while the reader can really sympathize with Tom's situation (he feels the need to do what is right, and not make the baby's true family suffer a loss they don't have to), Isabel's situation is also oddly understandable, particularly in light of her having lost so many babies.  It makes sense that she is so wracked with grief that she grasps at the first chance at a happy family.  In a strange way, anyway.  I'm lucky never to have experienced either the loss of a baby or the terror of being a mother losing her beloved child, but I could still understand Izzy's feelings (even if I couldn't condone them). The story just feels so real, and I think that is what I loved most about it.  It was also great exposure to a post-WWI Australia, which I had only been vaguely aware of.  The country was suffering just as much as Europe and America after the war; they'd lost innumerable young men to the fight, too.  It's not something I've encountered much in my exposure to WWI, so it was good to be reminded. I also loved how the lighthouse played a central role in the story, being both a beacon of love and light and hope, but also a warning to ships (and perhaps people) to stay away - DANGER!  After all, that is its job.  I loved the "light between oceans" concept, as Tom's light was located at the dividing line between the Indian and Antarctic Oceans.  The baby girl, though, also played a role as a "light" which both united and divided many people (unintentionally, as she was so young when everything happened). I want to talk and talk and talk about this novel, but I'll shush for now.  If anyone would like to discuss further, though, I'd be glad to in the comments!  For now, I'll leave the readers with some images from The Write Life which show one of the lighthouses that Stedman based Janus Rock upon: by Carol Warner of The Write Life by Carol Warner of The Write Life Beautiful, huh?   Read the book for more beauty.  Seriously.  Humanity written perfectly. Yours, Arianna

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