I finished reading The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins about a week ago, and while the rest of the book was good (per say), I hated the ending

When Rachel first survives being hit in the head I start losing interest.

And then she and Anna (and Anna’s child) escapes and Tom dies. It’s… Dissapponting.

I don’t know why; maybe I didn’t like Rachel a lot. I mean I didn’t quiet enjoy the characters-- esp compared to how much I enjoyed MC in other books and I defo didn’t connect and the first person POV pulled me out bc I didn’t feel like I was there y’know.

I would have preffered if Megan died and Tom kind of force Anna into silence and Scott get in trouble and Dr Kamal get killed. I don’t usually want such dark endings in books but for some reason it seems like the only satisfactory end to this book.

What’s are your thoughts?

  • Juenblue@alien.top
    BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The ending was forced/rushed.

    1st, it was shown Anna madly in love with him thinking he (Max) is perfect and the just 5 to 6 pages later Rachel convinced her that Max is a gaslighter and pathological liar along with a murderer. Like how ? It would have been much better if the writer showed Anna struggling to believe and comprehend that her perfect loving husband cheated on her and even killed someone

    2nd , Writer did Rachel dirty for once i started to like her (in the end ) but in the book’s world she is painted as a mentally unstable person. Why Rachel had to take responsibility of self defense and why not Anna ? Even though in reality , Anna was the one who did the deed

    although the book is good for people who are beginners in Thriller/mystery type of books.

  • YakSlothLemon@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I ended up coining the term Amnesia Ex Machina for this book… “well, 50 pages left, her memory will be coming back anytime now.” The thing is, I’ve had a lot of reason to apply it since. It’s such a weak plot device. Gone Girl worked with an unreliable narrator because she was unreliable because it was deliberate, but we’re seeing so many unreliable narrators who have addiction issues/mental issues etc. and that can be fine unless it’s being used to stretch a 10 minute mystery into 250 pages.