Here we go:
Everyone and their mother seems to have read this book recently. I first read about it in an old issue of Entertainment Weekly, which informed me that this was THE book to read this summer. Well, that and the 50 Shades series...but you and I both know that was never going to happen. So, after spending time with one of the great American novels in August, I decided I was due for a thriller, murder-mystery of sorts.
Without question, Gone Girl is a page turner and a perfect beach read. The chapters alternate between the husband's point of view and his missing wife...which means just as soon as you finish one chapter, you're desperate to read the next one...and on, and on, and on. I really liked Gone Girl - I was gripped from the get-go and found myself sneaking off to a quiet corner of my office building to read on my lunch break simply because I couldn't wait to find out what happened. It's sort of a crazy psychological tale that makes you wonder how well anyone really knows the person that they're married too. I appreciated some of it's twists and turns...but I have to say, in some odd way, I found the end of the book a touch unsatisfying. I guess because Flynn had spent some 300+ pages building up tension, throwing in plot twists, and all the rest that by the time I came to the final chapter I really expected a huge, earth shattering revelation. But...and maybe this was the whole point actually...instead the novel wound down to a sort of gentle fade to black, the last words left to subtlety settle and linger on your brain.
I sort of can't believe I waited as long as I did to read this book - I'd picked it up months and month ago in a secondhand book shop - because I pretty much fell in love with it on the opening page. Judd Foxman's father has died and his last request was that his family sit Shiva together, pulling the family - and all of their dysfunction - under the same roof for seven days and nights. Equally heart-breaking and heart-warming, this book had me laughing out loud in one moment and biting my lip to hold back tears in the next. Extremely well-written, it had moments of sheer comic brilliance coupled with some of the most heartfelt, sincere emotions I've ever seen put to page. In short, it's a book about a family - their imperfections, their craziness (because what family isn't at least a touch crazy, right?) and at the very core, its love...even if it's shown in unconventional forms. I adored this book - certainly one of my favorite reads of the year thus far. I'm already eagerly looking forward to the next thing read by Tropper. (An author I clearly have developed a bit of a crush on...)
1 comment:
While I understand your frustration with the ending of Gone Girl, I ask you this - could it have ended any other way? :) To me, no, not really. Otherwise it would have been too tidy, or too extreme, or too fake. This way it was even more f***ed up than I could imagine.
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