Gone Girl

Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

With her razor-sharp writing and trademark psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around

If I were forced to use one word to describe my initial reaction to Gone Girl, it'd be aJHSLJKHADSKJFASD. If that word could somehow be an emotion, I felt it. Hard. 

This book was blowing up all summer with everyone and their mother talking about it, and I'm not even exaggerating about the "mother" part. In addition to critical acclaim (not to mention a seven-figure movie deal from Reese Witherspoon's company), it's become a very popular book club pick.

And oh boy, does this book live up to the hype.

Flynn is one of the first authors I've encountered that tackles dual perspectives successfully. Like, really successfully. The story is told in alternating chapters by Nick, husband and suspected murderer, and Amy, the missing wife herself, through diary excerpts. Each character is fully fleshed out and--get this--distinct. So often, dual perspectives fail in novels because there's barely a distinction between characters, but not here. Oh, no.

Not just that, but Flynn has this incredible ability to make me both adore and despise her characters. I fluctuated in my suspicions of Amy's disappearance to the point where I was ready to bust out the Clue moves on this one: It was _____ in the kitchen with the candlestick! 

Of course, I was dead wrong. So, so, so wrong. I never saw the plot twist (or should I say twists) in this book coming. Not for a mile. 

For the sake of keeping this spoiler-free, I'm going to stay away from major plot points, but let me give you this: everything that happens in this book. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. I remember reading Great Expectations my senior year of high school and just being amazed when every thread somehow reconnected in the end, and Gone Girl manages to do the same thing. Just with more sex scenes. 

It's rare that a book can do just about everything write--characters, plot, writing style (oh, Lord, I wish I could write like Gillian Flynn...)--but Gone Girl manages. 

I'm not sure this is a book everyone could love, though. Besides "perfect" and "deeply unsettling," the next word I'd use to describe it is "frustrating." But with thrillers, I think that's a wonderful book trait. Not everyone does.  

But if it even seems mildly interesting, read it. Read it read it read it. Then report back to me because UGH THE ENDING IS SO GOOD AND I NEED EVERYONE TO TALK ABOUT IT WITH.

THE VERDICT? 

(As if this'll come as a surprise....)

The Secret Year

The Secret Year 

bu Jennifer R. Hubbard

Colt and Julia were secretly together for a year, and no one ever knew, not even Julia's boyfriend. Why would they-they were from two different crowds. Julia lived in her country club world and Colt . . . didn't. Then Julia dies in a car accident. Colt is devastated but can't mourn openly, and he's tormented that he may have played a part in her death. And when Julia's journal ends up in his hands, he is forced to relive their year together-just when he is trying to forget. The problem is, how do you get over someone who was never really yours to begin with?

(Just a note: this review contains spoilers. Granted, the book is so predictable you could probably figure out every single one on your own, but—ugh.)

Wow. So. Where do I begin?

I cannot remember the last time a book pissed me off as much as this book did. And I don't mean it in the sense that it annoyed me, but that it actually made me angry.

Let me start from the beginning: poor Colt (boring, unlikable) has been "seeing" (aka having all kinds of sex—but don't worry, they use a condom, because even though they're all horrible, selfish people, they don't want to have a baby) this rich girl named Julia (less boring, more unlikable) for a year when she dies in a car accident. Colt can't mourn her because he's scum and she had a hot boyfriend. Julia's brother gives Colt a journal of her really corny poetry and prose about them having sex.

That's it. That's the story.

Honestly, though? Nothing happens in this book. Nothing. There was absolutely no tension, nothing propelling me forward in this novel except for the desire to be able to finish the book and have the basis to write my review off of. The entire novel is basically Colt feeling guilty over something really stupid and having sex with a lot of girls. Oh, and there are some lame, pointless fights between the rich and the poor that were kind of West Side Story-ish, minus ballet. 

The characters in this novel were unbelievable in that I didn't believe one single character for a second. They were all selfish and annoying in their own way, and their motivations made no sense. Like, here's a bunch of hick boys who decide to beat up a rich kid because he's so awful, but it honestly felt like it was thrown in there for the hell of it. It was so, so pointless, and the characters all seemed like cutouts. There's the manipulative rich girl (Julia), the perfect girl who won't love him back (Kirby), the girl best friend who's loved him all along (Syd), the white trash friends (Nick, Paul), the waitress mother, the alcoholic father, the gay brother—I mean, seriously.

Oh, right. The gay brother. Tom's big coming out on Thanksgiving was probably the most cliche, overwrought, unrealistic coming out I've ever read. Period. The entire scene completely demeaned the coming out process because there was no emotion in it whatsoever. Like, hey, here's Tom who's cocky and arrogant and also gay, and here's his parents literally disowning him because they're closed-minded hicks, but they'll get over it, and at least it's a Thanksgiving to Remember! But don't worry, because Colt is okay with it, even though he "[doesn't] see how [Tom] could want to have sex with another guy, but hey, it's his life." 

I've had it wrong all this time. Apparently being a gay man is only about having sex with other guys. Thanks for the helpful insight. Oh, did I also mention his brother was into theater? Yeah. Because everyone who's gay is automatically flamboyant and artsy.

This book is also ridiculous in its views of female sexuality, as Colt is frequently referred to as having "been" with Julia--since the only thing they did was have sex, well. How lucky he was to have "been" with her. Let's not mention how at three points during the novel, one of the girls Colt's just slept with gets all emotional and leaves when he just wants to rest, because sex is hard work, and he's tired. Ah, yes, let the guy lay back while the girl overanalyzes their sexual encounter. That doesn't sound cliche at all.

I think it's clear from this website alone that we're sex positive. Sex isn't a bad thing, and I totally think that that needs to be clearer in young adult literature. Books with sex views like these are not helping the cause. 

Beside the story, I wasn't even into the writing. It was unnecessarily flowery, I couldn't tell one narration from another (Julia's journal entries are interspersed), and--actually, don't even get me started on those damn entries. The writing was supposed to be so sexy, but it honestly read like really bad fan fiction mixed with low-grade erotica. It was not hot at all, it was pretentious, and I spent more time rolling my eyes than caring about their dumb forbidden romance. You know what, though, it wasn't even forbidden. And it wasn't a romance. It was having sex in a car by a bridge. Oh, my heart's so a-flutter.

Not to mention that some basic facts of the novel are just so stupid. Like, Colt and his mother work at a family restaurant. His mom works the 4 to midnight shift. What kind of a family restaurant stays open till midnight? And throughout the entire novel, Colt acts like he feels so horribly guilty over Julia's death, BUT HE DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING. NOTHING AT ALL. HE HAD SEX WITH HER AND WAS A DICK AND THAT WAS IT. At times, Julia's death felt like a device to make it acceptable for Colt to be an asshole. Which he was. Big time. But it still isn't acceptable.

Needless to say, there isn't anyone I could recommend this to. It's a fairly short book, so I guess if you feel like torturing yourself, you can give it a shot, but trust me when I say it's just not worth it. I want my $7.99 back.

THE VERDICT?

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

by Michelle Hodkin

Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.

She’s wrong.

***************

Blech. That describes my general attitude toward this book: Blech. 

First let me say that I had a lot of hope for this book. The premise is intriguing (how did Mara survive a building collapse that killed her three friends, and why can't she remember it?), Mara is snarky (girl after my own heart), the cover is stunning (albeit completely irrelevant to the story), and there's a hot British bad-boy love interest (obligatory swooooon). That has some serious makings for a great story, right?

Well, with just these factors, it is a great story. I absolutely loved the first two-thirds of this book, and was tearing through it. But then, of course, like every trendy YA book, Mara Dyer throws in a paranormal twist. And that's where the book loses it.

Look, I'm a fan of paranormal. Not the biggest fan, but a fan. I think, when done right, it can be damn near genius. (Looking at you, Laini Taylor.) But the paranormal in this book is so choppy and abrupt that it feels like one big gimmick. Not just that, but some supernatural happenings are alluded to in the beginning of the book with a Ouija board, but then is completely dropped until the last one-third of the novel, when the paranormal comes back full force. But here's the thing--It feels like such a cop-out. I'm going to leave it at that, because I don't want to spoil anything, but I found myself sighing and groaning the last third of the book because it was so ridiculous. Like, it wasn't even pleasurable sighing and groaning!

Although I suppose if anyone in this book could spark that kind of pleasure, it'd be Noah, Mara's sexy, smutty love interest. He's a player, he's British, he's loaded, he's the epitome of every single bad boy cliche there is. This isn't necessarily a negative. No, I found Noah to be one of the bright spots in the novel. He's funny and charming, but there's nothing very original about him, and honestly the 350+ pages of "I hate you!" and "No, you love me!" got so. Friggin'. Old. So much of the banter between Noah and Mara, while amusing, was repetitive and totally gratuitous. Like, really? Does Noah need to pretend to be a nude model? No. It's a silly, pointless scene meant to emphasize how oh-so hot Noah is, and how lucky Mara is that he's interested in her.

The secondary characters all fell short as well. Even Mara's brothers, Daniel and Joseph, are complete stock characters -- the quintessential perfect first-born and the super mature twelve year old, respectively. Then there's the evil blonde bitch at school, her gay buddy, the token minority best friend (who is, in this case, black, Jewish, and bi I MEAN REALLY), the overprotective mother, the emotionally absent father. It's kind of like Hodkin watched an episode of True Life on MTV and determined that all teenagers can't fit into these labels, all while wearing Converse sneakers and thinking that that somehow makes them edgy and cool.

The biggest issue with the secondary characters, though, was that Rachel, Mara's supposed absolute best friend who died in the building collapse that Mara survived, isn't characterized. At all. You know how in Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer herself is barely onscreen except for, like, two flashbacks and a few dream sequences, but the watcher still develops this huge connection to her based on the attitudes toward her from the other residents? Well, Rachel is seldom shown "in action" in this book, and Mara primarily just talks about how much she loved her, and how great she was, and blah, blah, blah. Uh, yeah, that's great Mara, but why should I care that she's dead? I couldn't care less that Rachel is dead because I failed to see what was so great about her.

In retrospect, I'm pretty sad I didn't like this book when it could've been so awesome. The plot is convoluted and the character interactions are gratuitous, but you know what? It was the kind of book that angered me to the point where I know I'll end up reading the next book just to see what, if any, resolution there is. Which is annoying, but at the same time, it's what a book series is supposed to do -- you either love it and keep buying books, or you dislike it and keep buying books to frustrate yourself even further.

Bring it on, The Evolution of Mara Dyer. We have unfinished business.

The Verdict?