The Girl on the Train film is driving book fans off the rails

Sometimes that old saying is right - and the book is just better than the film in every single way

"The book is always better than the film" is a pretty tired assertion, but that doesn't mean it isn't just sometimes true.

As many fans of Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train soon discovered, packing into cinemas to watch the glitzy Hollywood adaptation of what's been invariably described as the next Gone Girl, many were in for something of an unpleasant surprise.

Not that the critics didn't warn them, with the film falling foul in its reception and landing a 43% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Indeed, The Independent's Geoffrey Macnab described the film as a "jolting and confusing ride", and book fans are quickly discovering that even Emily Blunt's always stellar work fails to save this cinematic adaptation from becoming a mere shadow of its source material.

And let's not even start with the fact that, despite its British star, the film switches up the book's London's setting for New York; without any apparent good reason to do so.

Hawkins herself has agreed with critics that Blunt's casting sees her as "too beautiful" to realistically play the self-destructive Rachel, whose character is an overweight alcoholic.