The Girl on the Train

Book: The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins

Members Present: Terrie, Christy, Gina, Annette, Marie, Karin, Denise, Sharon, Lorelei, Cindi, Lina. (Not in photo: Shea) Record attendance!

Venue: Athens

Book Discussion:

Here is one disadvantages of having almost everyone attend book club and to have it at a restaurant: it's hard for everyone to be in the same conversation. Which means there were 2 discussions going on, not necessarily at the same time, and half of the group discussed the book more than the other did. So even though it would seem that this summary isn't necessary since almost everyone was there, it actually is, because not everyone heard what we talked about.

Some people liked the book and some people didn't. Some found it difficult to get into and others found it to be a quick read. Some found the disjointed, out of sequence style difficult to follow. I thought the style was meant to be intentionally confusing so that you could get a sense of what it was like for Rachel to be drunk, blacked out, and hung over most of the time. In fact, if you appreciated the feeling of being in the character's head, you should check out the movie Memento, which is presented in a similar style and meant to illustrate what it's like to have amnesia.

I don't read many mystery novels, but this seemed to be a pretty good one. Most people didn't realize who the killer was until the very end of the book. Marie said she knew right away because Tom was way too nice. I didn't think he was that nice, since he had an affair and left his wife. I thought it was weird that he killed her because, once he hit her harder than he meant to and she was bleeding to death, he thought it would be easier to just finish the job and try to bury her with his bare hands in the middle of a park. It seems like it would be easier just to leave her for dead and get the hell out of there.

All of the characters were crazy, of course, except for the roommate and the therapist. Linda listened to the book on tape and said that the therapist had a really soothing voice, just as a good therapist should. Several people said that it gave them a better appreciation of how difficult it would be to have an addiction and why it's so hard to get better. I mentioned how Rachel was similar to Alice's sister in What Alice Forgot, who became estranged with Alice after she couldn't get pregnant and began isolating herself from everyone because of her grief. And I hadn't thought of it at the time, but Rachel is similar to Megan, too, in that regard. Megan lost her brother when she was a teenager, and her reckless behavior with men was her addiction to cope with her grief.

The book is being turned into a movie, which is supposed to be released some time this year. The info on it can be found here. Lorelei and I didn't like the casting job, since most of them are British and we don't know who they are, so we took the liberty of doing our own casting for the movie. Since we don't know many actors in their 30's, Lorelei just looked up the 50 hottest actors and we based some of our choices entirely on looks. So even though we still don't know who some of these actors are, at least they look more like we thought the characters would look. Here's who we came up with:

Rachel: Jessica Chastain
Megan: Emma Stone
Scott: Chris Helmsworth
Tom: Ryan Gosling
Anna: Margo Robbie
Cathy (roommate): Shailene Woodley
therapist: Ranveer Singh

Next Book:

Linda volunteered to host the next book club. Here is the info on it:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.

Thanks, Sharon, for the recommendation.

We will aim to meet on Wednesday, May 25 @ 6:30 @ 419 West, so mark your calendars.

Until then, happy reading!