I read this as a recommendation from a family member. Before then, I had no desire to pick it up. I think all the hype surrounding it put me off. But, man, am I a fool. That hype isn't misplaced. I don't go for thrillers at all, but this was unputdownable. I honestly can't think of a single fault. I was fascinated from start to finish.

Setting
Winey, Ashbury, London. I feel the setting is so important. It sets the tone of the story. So when I discovered the film is set in America, I was bitterly disappointed. This book works so well with a London setting, I couldn't imagine it somewhere else. I like that it's London, I like that they're English, I like that the things they talk about and reference are relatable because I'm English too; the newspapers, the BBC, TV shows, it's all undeniably British. Even the way this book is narrated, the very tone of it all, is noticeably British.

I know I don't have to watch the film, and I probably won't now; why taint my view on something I consider perfect? Books are always better anyway, we all know that.

Characters
Rachel - She's lonely, an alcoholic and without direction. She just wants meaning to her life again, just wants to feel useful and important. But in her pursuit to feel needed, she makes the worst decisions. Every lie, every bad choice, I'm cringing. It's like witnessing a car crash; you don't want to watch but you can't look away.

Megan - She's depressed, oppressed and she suffers from serious anxiety. She's the result of a haunted past and some terrible memories. She's a prolific cheater and can't seem to bare being told no. She likes to feel in control, likes to think she can have anyone she chooses.

Anna - She's paranoid, selfish, and blind to the truth. Once the other woman, now the wife. She didn't care that she was sleeping with a married man, she admits missing the thrill it gave her. A woman who doesn't care who and what she destroys to achieve her own idea of a perfect life.

I love the unreliable narrators. Can we really believe everything they're telling us? What are they not telling us?

Plot
Rachel takes the train into London every morning. The train stops at the same red light every day and in those brief moments of pause, she looks out the window at, not only her old home in which she lived with her ex-husband, but the house a few doors away seemingly occupied by the perfect couple (in Rachel's head at least) In her loneliest and boredom she dubs this couple Jess and Jason and invents stories about their happy life in her head, simply to distract from how utterly broken her own life is.

Then one day she sees something. It's her 'Jess' and she's with another man. The next day 'Jess', or Megan as we come to learn she is called, has gone missing. Rachel, however, can't shake the feeling that she knows something more. Drinking herself into a stupor, Rachel's memory of the night Megan went missing is a total blank, but was she there that night? Did she see something?

This book is all about reading between the lines. The truth is never fully revealed (until the end) even when Rachel starts to remember things, she never directly admits what she saw that night. She gets flashes of images in her head, odd little things slowly bring back the memories for her, and we have to fill in the blanks. It's really like a puzzle; we get given little pieces of it, but too many pieces are missing for us to fully guess what the whole picture is, but we have just enough to wonder.
This kept me guessing for the majority of the book. It was only until halfway through the final quarter of the book that I figured out what happened.

Writing Style
This is so real, so raw, so unapologetic. I just love writing styles that feel like I'm hearing a real person's direct thought. The inner-monologue, the dialogue, the very narrative, this is how to write a book the way real people talk and think.
Written in multi-perspective first-person present tense. This normally doesn't work. It's not the kind of writing style that can be so easily executed, especially as a debut, but Paula Hawkins has absolutely nailed it. Ordinarily, I'm not a fan of first-person and certainly not present tense, but this book has opened my eyes bout how effective a writing style it can be when done right. It just worked.

And this is a debut! I don't know why it shocks me when I read a first-time novel and find it fantastic. It all comes down to the writing. Whether it's the first books or the twenty-first.

Final Impression
I absolutely loved this. It just goes to show; read out of you comfort zone and you might just find a gem. I'm much more inclined now to read Paula Hawkins next novel. Talent is talent, after all.