I was a big fan of the movie Gone Girl. I didn’t actually read the book until after I saw the movie, and the only real reason (if I’m being honest) I saw the movie was because Rosamund Pike got nominated for an Oscar for her role as Amy Elliot-Dunne…that was the year I decided to watch all (well, most) of the Oscar nominees. Regardless, I enjoyed the way Gillian Flynn (both the author and screenwriter) crafted the story so that in the beginning you were for one character and against the other, and then it so dramatically switched. The ebbs and flows of the story, the twists and turns, really drew me in – and I’m not the kind of guy who likes thrillers. So when I heard Paula Hawkins’ book The Girl On the Train was going to be “the next Gone Girl,” I immediately picked up a copy. Also, I heard it was becoming a movie, and I wanted to read it before seeing the film….I felt reading Gone Girl before would’ve been better than seeing the film first, it felt kind of pointless reading it once I knew how it ended. But I got to say, after reading The Girl On the Train, I’m not really that excited for the movie.
First, let me just say whoever told me that The Girl On the Train was the next Gone Girl lied. Gone Girl was freaky/demented, but there wasn’t anything exactly thrilling about The Girl On the Train. She literally sits on a train, drunk, and thinks she witnesses a murder. No one believes her because she’s an alcoholic and is unemployed (she lost her job for being drunk), so she spends the whole time trying to remember what happened a night she blacked out (the night of the alleged murder). *SPOILER ALERT* Turns out she was right the whole time and the person she thought committed the murder did.
With Gone Girl, you have no idea where it’s going. When you think you know, the plot changes and we go somewhere else. But, I didn’t really get that with The Girl On the Train. Now, I’m not hating on Paula Hawkins or her novel. It was rather interesting and I did finish the book after all – which says something, I usually just stop reading a book if it’s terrible. It’s just, in my opinion, I wouldn’t qualify The Girl On the Train as a thriller. And I definitely would not compare it to Gone Girl. I know the trailer makes it look like it, but to me it wasn’t as freaky.
Maybe it’s just how I read the book and when I see it on screen it will be demented and thrilling…also, how much do you want to bet Emily Blunt will get nominated for an Oscar for this role? Just saying…
