The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins, 336 pages

Have you ever read one of those books that everyone else is reading and talking about, and when you finish it, you're like: "So... why is this popular?"  This was like that for me.  Rachel takes the train every day, to and from London, and she always sees a couple at one of the train stops.  She's created a whole fantasy surrounding them and their lives, and when the woman goes missing, she finds herself drawn to help solve the mystery.  Personally, I found just about every character to be unlikable and annoying, and when the "mystery" is solved, I could not have cared less.

Love Minus Eighty

Love Minus Eighty, by Will McIntosh, 432 pages

In the "not-that-distant" future, cryogenics has evolved in such a way that corpses can be frozen and revived, for a hefty amount of money.  For young, attractive women who died without freezing insurance, their bodies are frozen and preserved for a dating service, where wealthy men can court them and bring them back to life if they like what they see.  This is a notion that is so reprehensible, it doesn't seem that unrealistic.  There are a few intersecting story lines in this book, the main one being that of Rob, who accidentally kills a woman in a car accident and spends all of his money and time visiting her as penance.  I liked the idea of this story,which is what it originated as- a short story; but the execution fell flat for me.