Gone Girl

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How do you prepare for vacation?  Let's just go through a listing, shall we?  You might have your mail stopped, ask a friend to check on the house while you're gone, clean from top to bottom, do laundry so you can pack, set up a dog-sitter, clean out your fridge...I could probably keep going, but I think that's enough.  You get the idea

One main thing I relish before a trip is picking out what I'm going to read.  For David and I, we agreed upon four books and ended up finishing two.  That's pretty good; our road trips usually consists of two, so we were right on track this time.

Separately, I had a few books that I wanted to try and either finish or read through.  One was Gone Girl, which is sweeping the nation right now.  It's been on top of the New York Times Bestseller list for weeks and the author, Gillian Flynn has been making the rounds.

 

In fact, it appears that the book will be made into a movie with Reese Witherspoon looking to be taking on the lead female role.  But, when you have this kind of hype and you're really looking forward to finishing the book after reading a mere 50 pages...doesn't it sound like a fantastic idea to leave the book in your car right before you leave for vacation?

Because that's what I did.

Fan-freakin'-tastic.

Oh well, I was able to finish the book earlier last week.  No biggie, this small hiccup allowed me to progress further into Les Misérables while we were actually on vacation.  Which is a realllly long book, I might add.  But, really good too.

Unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard the premise of this book.  On the off-chance you haven't, I'll indulge you.  Amy and Nick have been married for five years...and after a celebratory five year anniversary crepe breakfast, Nick heads off to work.  Later that morning/early afternoon Amy goes missing.  And, inevitably, the first place the police and media look...is at Nick.  And he's an easy scape goat, you soon realize.

The way this book reads (predominately) is Nick's present day telling and Amy's journal over the past few years.  So, while the police and media immediately appear to convict Nick, you as the reader have access to his inner thoughts and fears.  This is a new and interesting way to tell this type of story and I enjoyed it.

I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of this novel and what happens...because there's no way to do that without revealing HUGE aspects of the story-line.  However, I will say that I am not a mystery/thriller girl.  Over the past year, I've tried to read a few mysteries (in the classic sense of the word) and they just don't excite me.  But, I will say that I enjoyed this book.  Am I doing back flips over it and telling everyone I know to read it?  No.  But, I would recommend it simply based upon the literary quality of the book.  Flynn is an excellent story-teller and there are definitely some unexpected plot twists.  And everyone loves real, flawed characters; Nick and Amy both fit that bill to a T...one of them maybe a bit too much.

Go and pick this book up if you're so inclined, it is a treat to read.  But, the world won't end if you don't read the newest and most coveted bestseller.  I'll give you the overall message Flynn said this book presents, that no one really knows what kind of person they may be married to...