For a book that people were raving about this sure wasn’t
what I expected it to be. Should I have realized that it wasn’t going to be my
cup of tea? Probably. Especially since it was being compared to Gone Girl, and I did not like that book
at all.
This story is a tangled web starting with Rachel. She rides
the train every day into the city, as she does this she passes by her
neighborhood where her ex-husband is currently living with his new wife and baby. But Rachel focused on another house one just
down the road. It was the house of Jess
and Jason, A cute couple that she made a life for in her head, they were a
perfectly happy couple, doing happy couple things. Anything to distract from
her life, since she was a depressed alcoholic with stalking tendencies. One day however, her perfect little story
falls apart when she sees Jess kissing someone is who is not Jason and then a
few days later is reported missing. She knows Jason will be the first suspect
so she goes to the police to tell them about the affair and somehow butts
herself into the investigation and Steven’s (Justin’s) life. Her web of deceit
is tangled and twisted and just asking to collapse. Her part of the story is
from a few weeks before the murder until the resolution of the book.
Then we have Megan. (Jess to Rachel.) She is very depressed, her husband is loving
and kind but she can’t sleep. She can’t sleep for reasons that she won’t share
to anyone because they will judge her. So after pleading with her, her husband
finally convinces her to see a therapist. A very attractive therapist. A
therapist who she starts to have an affair with, being the good doctor that he
is, he does end it realizing that he is taking advantage of her. This sends
Megan into another tailspin. She doesn’t trust her husband and her husband is
becoming less trusting of her. Of course she was sneaking around having an
affair. We follow her story from a few years before her murder up until her
untimely demise.
Last we have Anna, Tom’s wife and mistress. This is the
mistress that broke up Rachel’s marriage. She is also the person who has to
deal with a drunk harassing them frequently--the drunk being Rachel. She is
stuck living in her husband’s ex-wife’s house because he told her it was a
better investment than buying a new house. She starts wishing that she hadn’t
settled down, there was so much validation to her life knowing that she could
get a married man to cheat on his wife. She doesn’t regret having a baby but
she starts to question if Tom is the one. Especially with his crazy ex whom
always ride of the trains that pass by their/her house. Anna is understandable concerned
for the safety of her child. Her
storyline is a bit more sporadic, starting from before the murder until the
conclusion of this story.
How you are probably asking, “What do all these women have
in common? Why are they important?” Other than their debilitating depression
that just oozes out of every page of this book, they are all different women.
They each view life and their world differently. Sure the suspense is there but by the end of
this book I was so sick of the depression rotting these women I didn’t care if
the murderer was caught, if they all died, if the world was exploded by aliens.
I just wanted this book to be DONE. But no,
it kept going and going, with each chapter jumping from different characters in
different points of time. It was a great big ball of crap. Okay that is a bit harsh;
it was a big ole mishmash of clinical depression and deceit. Not fun. Not
entertaining. Not good.
