Gone Girl

Novel by Gillian Flynn

Always a little late to the party on these uber popular books, aren't I? I think I have oppositional defiance disorder (ODD, that's a thing, much to the chagrin of school teachers everywhere) when it comes to current "it" books. I purposefully don't want to read it BECAUSE it's the book that everyone else is reading. Until I do.

I think with these books I also tend to tune out what the book is really about, beyond the premise, which is obvious from the title here. A woman disappears, clearly, and as usual her husband is the main suspect. But what I didn't know is that it's told from two perspectives, his and hers, and the timelines are different, his being the present day, the current disappearance and investigation, and hers being past, how they met and their first five years of marriage. And what I really didn't know is how completely mental it is. Like, get under your skin creepy crazy. I heard it was DARK, but wow. These people are nutso.

I have to give credit to the author. She must have read a ton of psychology books and then dove really deep into her own marriage and every other marriage she had ever witnessed up close in order to give this gut check analysis of a life lived together. The characters are incredibly detailed and rounded and you learn more about them than you know about yourself or your own close ones, which is incredible writing, but remember, crazy. And it made me a little crazy reading it. How much do you really want to know about other people, really? Even your own spouse or other loved ones? This is kind of the point of the book, that knowing someone so well is touted as true love and makes you soul mates, but it's eventually kind of disappointing. Or worse.

There. I've done my best to describe the satisfying creepiness without giving away any of the many plot twists. By the way, I saw that a movie version is due out next year. I'm not sure I'll see it. I mean, I don't think I want it to count as one of "my" movies when my husband and I take turns choosing what to rent because it will be somewhat violent and full of cringe-worthy swearing. I'm more of a feel good movie kind of girl. On the other hand, maybe it will be one of the rare movies we both like equally. We'll see.