Back to America for a Minute: Book Review

Before our vacation I had known for a while that the plane rides were gonna be killer, so I demonstrated an unprecedented amount of discipline and saved a couple of books that I've been dying to read for months and months, so that I could *hopefully* escape into them and forget about all the snoring, bored, cramped passengers around me.

My plan worked.  For the most part.  Turns out there really isn't a cure for long plane rides.  (Kind of like how there really isn't a cure for moving.  It's just going to suck.  And the sooner you come to terms with this, the better.)

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (with a lil Singapore in the background)

Approximately 500 people have told me to read this book.  Why it took me this long I really don't know, but I'm glad I saved it.  In case you live under a rock and have not already heard, Gone Girl is a psychological thriller about a couple who is celebrating their 5-yr wedding anniversary and the wife goes missing.  The husband seems cold and indifferent, and as the investigation proceeds and the wife doesn't turn up, all signs start to point to him.  But he swears he didn't do it, and something tells you he just might be right.

When people would tell me to read it, they almost all described the book as "psychological."  And I can't think of a better adjective.  Flynn really gets into the heads of the two main characters, husband and wife, and presents big and small thoughts in a way that seems so accurate and human.

"Anyway, the party is being thrown by one of Carmen's good friends who writes about movies for a movie magazine, and is very funny, according to Carmen.  I worry for a second that she wants to set us up: I am not interested in being set up.  I need to be ambushed, caught unawares, like some sort of feral love-jackal.  I'm too self-conscious otherwise.  I feel myself trying to be charming, and then I realize I'm obviously trying to be charming, and then I try to be even more charming to make up for the fake charm, and then I've basically turned into Liza Minnelli: I'm dancing in tights and sequins, begging you to love me.  There's a bowler and jazz hands and lots of teeth."

The book is well written and the plot is killer (pun!), I mean really, really complex and well thought out.  But, and there's no other way to say this so I'm just gonna say it, it is messed up.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  There are some disturbing scenes and thoughts and dialogue.  There were times that G would lean over to see what I was reading and I would brace myself.  I know he thought to himself, "What the...?!"  If overt sexual references are not your thing (they're not mine), but I mean if they will distract you from everything else in the book, then this is not the read for you.  But I found even with these over-the-top descriptions, I still couldn't put the book down because I wanted to find out what was really going on. 

My only criticism of Flynn's writing is that she uses hyphens as if she must meet a daily quota.  This sounds minor but once it caught my attention, every single hyphenated description would jump off the page and I would get distracted.  Hundreds of pages of this (super-hot, crazy-girl, drunk-minded, that sort of thing).  I've never seen so many.  BUT, that said, she has written two other books and guess who just ordered them?  Yeah.  She's a good writer.

Steel yourself for this one, but if you like thrillers, if you like being swept away in someone else's crazy thoughts, this one is worth the read.

Enjoy!