3.5 stars. I see a lot of dislike for this book on Goodreads. A LOT. People refer to it as a 'self-help' book, criticize the writing style, and a host of other things. None of that really bothered me. I love folk tales, so I enjoyed the storytelling aspect of the book. As far as people describing it as a 'self-help book', I didn't really get that sense. There are profound messages throughout the book, but I didn't feel like it was pretentious or judgmental at all, the way self-help books can be. On the contrary, this book is all about knowing yourself, and understanding that what fulfills you will not be the same as what fulfills another. There are fundamental truths in this book, but they are presented with a level of humility.

Now, people looking for a super in-depth novel full of descriptions and twists and turns and intricate plot probably won't enjoy this book. It's a simple story about a boy who goes out in search of treasure and the people he meets along the way who aid in (and sometimes hinder) his quest. It's told in a style that reminds me of fairy tales or folklore. The writing is simplistic (which could be partly because it's translated into English) but effective. It was a very quick read, at only 172 pages. I don't think it's a book I would feel I need to re-read, but I didn't hate the experience of reading it.

2.5 stars. I expected to really enjoy this book. I enjoy stories that take place in Ireland, and the premise of this book was intriguing. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get invested in this book.

The characters:
The 'main' character in this book is Nessa. She is 14 years old, and attends a 'survival school' that is designed to train kids to try to survive the Call. She suffers from polio, and consequently cannot move her legs well.

I felt no connection to any of the characters at all. The story is told in third person, which is fine, but it jumps back and forth to like 20+ characters perspectives. Many of them aren't even mentioned before the story is given over to them and then they aren't mentioned again afterwards.

I didn't feel like ANY of the characters were fleshed out very well. Conor, the school bully, is never given any kind of backstory that may explain the way he treats other people or if he has always been like that. The slight romance storyline (it's pretty much non-existent) just felt thrown in and was never properly developed.

The biggest problem is that none of the characters had a specific voice to me, maybe with the exception of Conor. Unfortunately, he was incredibly one-dimensional, as were the rest of the characters. That, plus the fact that they kept jumping from character to character, made it confusing at times to follow the story.


The plot:
There really wasn't much in the way of a plot. There's a mystery thrown in about schools being attacked and all the children in the schools being killed, but this is all happening far away from our characters for most of the story. For the most part, we're just following these kids in their training and when they are called into the Sídhe world. Honestly, if the character development had been more solid, I wouldn't even care if the plot was so thin, because I like character-driven stories. But to have both of these aspects just be mediocre...makes the book mediocre for me.

World Building: The world building is okay, but for a story where we are going into a fantasy land, I wasn't super impressed.

When I was first hearing about this book, people were saying that fans of The Hunger Games would love this book. This book is nothing like The Hunger Games. Nothing. Not similar in tone, style, genre, or subtext.

I am not sure if this is supposed to be a series or just a stand-alone novel. They left it open for sequels, but even if they do, I don't think I will be reading them.

I liked this book. I didn't love it, but I liked it well enough.

Characters: Belly (Isabel) is the main character and the story is told first person through her perspective. She is only 15, and much of the story is told through flashbacks, so I definitely take that into account in assessing her character. She was fine. I like her better than Lara Jean from the 'To All the Boys I've Loved Before' series, but there are still instances of her being incredibly childish, even as a 15/16 year old.

I didn't really understand her infatuation with Conrad. I get that he's a broody bad boy, and that's supposed to be sexy...but I didn't think he treated her particularly well, even in the flashbacks. I wish all of that had been fleshed out a little better. As far as his character, he seemed a little one-note to me.

Jeremiah was probably my favorite character in the book. I like his friendship with Belly, and his loyalty to her, even though he knows that she's got a thing for his brother.

One person I could've done without is Cam. That's not to say he was a bad character. He wasn't (maybe a little boring), but he brought nothing to the landscape of the novel. I don't understand why this author thinks her main characters need to have 12 different guys salivating over them at all times. It was the same in the TATBILB series. It's unrealistic and ultimately pointless, because we all know what the fate of their relationship is going to be. It feels like all these guys only exist to prop up our main character.

Plot: There really isn't much of a plot to speak of. This is more a 'slice of life' kind of story, as opposed to an action-filled ,plot-heavy novel. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. I really enjoy character-driven stories. If you're someone who needs an external plot to keep you interested, this probably isn't the book for you.

World building: This book was set in our world, in contemporary times, so it's not like there is some huge fantastical realm that needs to be designed from the ground up. But that doesn't mean that it's not important to set the scene, so to speak. Jenny Han did a really nice job building this world. I could picture the beach house, the beach, the boardwalk. There was a certain kind of nostalgia I felt while reading it, despite the fact that I've never been the kind of person who spent entire summers on vacation.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book while I was reading it. It was a quick read, and kept me engaged throughout. I will be reading the subsequent novels.

After reading the second book of this trilogy, I feel pretty much the same as I did after reading the first. I still don't understand Belly's obsession with Conrad. I can't tell if we are supposed to be rooting for them or what the deal is, but it just doesn't work for me. I get that this terrible tragedy happened to his family, but even in the flashbacks before any of that he was a sullen, closed-off person.

I really dislike Taylor, Belly's best friend. Jenny Han seems to have this thing about making the best girl friend of the main character completely insufferable. She must be obnoxious, selfish, and an all-around terrible friend. It feels like her way of propping up her main character by comparison by saying, "Look at Mary Sue! Isn't she a lovely girl?! Not like all the other girls around her." She did the same thing in the TATBILB series with Chris.

There were still things about this book I enjoyed. The flashback device they used to tell the story still worked for me. I'm not sure I needed Jeremiah's POV...especially since it didn't feel much different than Belly's...but it was effective. I liked learning a little more about their parents lives and interactions. Maybe it's because I'm a mom myself, but I connected more with Laurel (at least the scenes at the beach house near the end of the book) than I did with Belly or any of the other characters.

I will definitely finish this series out. I really hope that whoever she ends up with, it's written in an authentic and realistic way.

I have so many feelings about this book. I liked the first two in the series. I thought that both of them had their issues, but at the end of the day, I enjoyed them enough to continue the series.

This book was such a disappointment for me. I hated the complete 180 they did on Jeremiah's character. In the first two books he is this thoughtful, caring guy who goes out of his way for his brother when he thinks Conrad is having a crisis. In the second book we see certain events from his point of view and while he has jealousy where his brother is concerned, he genuinely wants him to be happy, even if it means his own unhappiness. Also, he is portrayed as being devoted to Belly.

But this book? This book characterizes Jeremiah as this needy, possessive, thoughtless, immature guy who breaks up with his girlfriend and hooks up with the first chick who looks his way, within days of the breakup. That's just not realistic.

The proposal also made me angry. I get that they are young, but proposing after she finds out you (sort of) cheated on her...that's pretty ballsy. And then to equate what he did with Lacie to Belly and Conrad sleeping under the same roof (not bed or room, but house) is just crazy; almost as crazy as Belly apologizing for the incident.

I liked Conrad a lot better in this book. The first two books made it really difficult to connect with him because he was so shut off from everyone emotionally that we didn't get to see his inner thoughts, motivations, and struggles. Getting a little of his POV really helped flesh him out as a character for me.

I also like Taylor better in this book. She was still a little overbearing and bossy, but it seems like she's calmed down a bit, and her motives aren't all about her now. She still wants to be the center of attention, but she is more thoughtful toward Belly.

I hate, hate, HATE the love triangle in this series. Why is it that one option has to be wonderful and the other is an asshole? In the first two books, Conrad was a jerk and Jeremiah was the good guy. In this last books, they totally flip flop and Jeremiah is this complete ass while Conrad has become a responsible adult. Why can't both of them be decent people? It felt very poorly contrived to me. I actually didn't mind who she ended up with, and the last little chapter actually made me smile, but leading up to it just pissed me off. I honestly felt like the author was trying to manipulate readers into backing her endgame couple, and that is lazy writing, plain and simple.

I also thought Belly became more insufferable in this installment of the series. Her wishy-washy ambivalence was always annoying, as was her tendency to completely ignore reality because she didn't want to deal with the truth of her feelings for these boys. I'm sorry, but she goes from completely distraught, not getting out of bed grief over her boyfriend's infidelity to agree to marry said boyfriend three days later?!?! What the hell?! That just does not track at all for me.

This book drags down the series as a whole for me. The complete character assassination was just aggravating and the 'plot', such as it was, had me rolling my eyes.

DNF around page 90 and skimmed the rest. I just could not get into this book. I almost NEVER quit reading a book, even if I am not really enjoying it. But I just could not get through this. Every other page is a new chapter and the flow feels disjointed because of this. Also, the writing style didn't work at all for me. When the author wasn't using choppy, short sentences and fragments, she was using long run-on sentences that were grammatically suspect.

Example:
"And they knew that Ben's favorite kind of ice cream wasn't ice cream at all, it was rainbow sherbet, and he always a green first, and so when I saw it in my grandma's freezer once and I started crying they didn't even ask why and I think I saw my uncle Nick my mom's brother crying too."

And:

"It's a tree name because my dad grew up in the Pacific Northwest and there was this huge old cedar tree in his yard and for some reason he thought that it would be a great name for his kid, boy or girl, and my mom liked it too, and he always joked that's how he knew he'd found the right person."

I'm not sure why the author made the narrative/structural choices she did, but I found it difficult to become immersed in the story.

I'm pretty disappointed that I didn't connect with this story or the characters. I understand that this is a middle-grade book, but I've been able to appreciate many middle-grade books in the past, so I don't think it's because I'm too old to enjoy it.

You want to know something that really bothers me? When a book is compared to another book as 'the next _______'. It almost never lives up to the hype, and even if it is a great story in its own right, you're going through the novel comparing it to another, instead of judging it on its own merits. This book has been endlessly compared to Gone Girl, a book I liked but wasn't obsessed about. I went into this book determined not to compare it to Gone Girl. And you know what? It wasn't difficult to do, because these two books are completely different. The only similarities are that:
1. Someone goes missing (not all that uncommon in thriller/suspense books);
2. The narrators are unreliable and, often times, unlikable;
And
3. I gave them both 3 stars.

So I'm just going to get into the different aspects of this story and my thoughts on them.

Characters: The story is told through the eyes of three different narrators. Along with a change in perspective is also a change in timeline in some cases.

Rachel is an unemployed alcoholic divorcée who rides the train into London every day so she doesn't have to tell her friend (who she's staying with) that she lost her job. The train goes right by and actually stops in front of her old house, which her ex-husband is still living in with his new wife and their baby girl. There is another house a few doors up that she also pays attention to. A man and woman (who she refers to as Jess and Jason) live there. She has created a fictional life for these people, idealizing them as the perfect couple.

Megan is the actual name of the woman who Rachel sees. Her husband's name is Scott. She definitely has some emotional issues, complete with self-sabotaging tendencies. Her life is definitely not the idyllic fairy tale that Rachel has conjured in her mind. Her husband can be jealous and possessive, at least according to her. She has had multiple affairs during their relationship, and is relatively frank in her attitude about it -- she admits to it and says that, while she loves her husband, it's not enough to be with only him. She has secrets that she won't share with her husband because she's afraid he'll reject her. The story revolves around her disappearance.

Anna is the aforementioned new wife of Rachel's ex-husband, Tom. She and Tom were having a lengthy affair while he was still married to Rachel, and she expresses absolutely no remorse for her actions. She actually states how happy and excited it made her, and how at times she wishes she was still his mistress. She seems to like the appearance of their little family more than the reality of it. She hates Rachel, who has continually harassed them since her relationship with Tom came to light.

None of these women are innocents. They are all habitual liars with vices that are inherently self-destructive. It was virtually impossible to relate or connect to any of these women. However, there were instances where I could sympathize with circumstances that were out of their control. The way Rachel's alcoholism was depicted was so frustrating, not because it was badly written, but because it was so realistic. As someone who has loved ones with alcohol problems, this really spoke to me.

I feel like the most interesting aspect of this book dealt with the illusion of happiness vs. the reality of getting what you think you want. Rachel has this idea of that Megan and Scott (Jess and Jason in her fantasy) are this perfect couple deep in love and when she sees Megan in an intimate moment with another man, it sends her in a downward spiral. Megan is unhappy in her marriage and seeks solace and happiness with other men. That feeling is fleeting and it doesn't do anything to fix what's broken inside her. Anna loves the idea of being seen with her husband and daughter, a perfect little family unit, and she didn't care who she had to step on to get there. She became involved with Tom, knowing he was married, and it never occurred to her that he would do the same thing to her that he did to Rachel.

That, to me, is far more interesting than the whole disappearance mystery. I had figured out about half way through who was responsible and why, and the reveal of the mystery wasn't all the compelling, to be honest. I don't really see this book as a super-dramatic thriller as much as I do a character study.

Overall, I was intrigued by this book and it's structure. It was a super fast read for me, and I would be interested in reading more by this author in the future. HOWEVER, I wish people would stop comparing it to Gone Girl. The Girl on the Train is its own book with its own themes, characters, and structure, and it should be judged as such.