LBC Medusa 

REVIEW

We all of us agreed that this was one of those books that once you start, you feel compelled to read on. A few of us dedicated hours that could have usefully been employed doing many MANY other things just to keep up with the ever increasing, beautifully managed pace of the story.

Some amongst our group – those who tended to only read one or two thriller style books a year – also admitted to being determined to read this quickly, while still held under its spell, before the plot hours and devices became too obvious to ignore. We’ve been burned in the past by books that were great in the moment but couldn’t withstand deeper scrutiny. This was summed up about 3 minutes into our discussion when one of our number noted that ‘it was a good afternoons read, however the more I think about it, the more I HATE it’.

Structurally, we all responded favourably to the three person narrative, set in two time lines. This meant that we were constantly world building and had to pay attention to who was doing the narration and when. Though of course, we did have a quibble about the blurb…as we do… At no point was Rachel ever merely *a* girl on a train – she was in fact intimately connected with the street and at least one family on it. This is turn led to a rant about the overuse of the word girl when selling novels (though to be fair we did qualify that we didn’t know whether this was always the title/central concept of the book or one chosen by a marketing department somewhere). Especially when Rachel – actually a relatively young woman at 34 years – was initially described as sounding much older physically.

We sidelined for a bit on how frightening it is at how quickly information can be gathered about a person online. Facebook, social networking, instagram… apparently from just a name, people can find out a whole heap about a person.

The characters on the other hand were far less satisfactory to us. Anna seemed to actively devolve as the book progressed. Indeed, she was a substantively more rounded character when being spitefully and wistfully described by Rachel than she is as a narrator. For one or two of us, it was inconceivable that she would have bought into Tom’s story about being unable to see the house. She was in real estate FFS! She knew the market. Holes like this lead many of us to figure out the conclusion faster than might normally be expected.

Megan was delightful but in a very manic pixie trope sort of way. Her backstory on the other hand felt very well realised and genuinely tragic, though I personally chaffed at the idea that she needed to seduce her counselor in order to distort the power balance to get the story out. Hmmmm

Rachel was a great character for most of us. Her narration is unreliable but only because she is lying to herself. Watching her descent into the bottle and her battle to re orientate her memories were particularly powerful scenes. Her relationship with Claire felt realistic and a little bit heartbreaking. I personally could have done without the scooby doo happy ending cure at the end of the novel but hey, redemption comes in mnay forms and good on her.

The male characters on the other hand were the slightest of slight. The most successful con job was between Megan and the man of her affair. Tom never quite seemed visible to many of us. Scott as opposed to Jason was a more foul and creepy creature. His relationship with Rachel felt odd to me but seemed to be perfectly in character to others. Certainly it further maintained the difference between the fantasy of Jason and the real lives before Rachel. However the pacing and the cheap thrill dilemma at the end of every single chapter (usually described away in a matter of lines once that story thread was picked up again) did genuinely keep us hooked.

The two cops were literally prototypes of Good Cop Bad Cop which was a bit frustrating. It seemed to many of us that even within that parameter, the Bad Cop (female) wouldn’t have ignored the information from Rachel.

FILM CASTING

 

 

 

The film rights for the novel were acquired by Dreamworks on March 24, 2014 with Marc Platt set to produce. On May 21, 2015 it was announced that the director of The Help David Platt would be directing the film based on a script wrtitten by Erin Cressida Wilson. On June 5, 2015 it was announced that British actress, Emily Blunt, was in talks to play the role of Rachel.

6/10