Gone Girl: Book Review

This book blew up on 2012 lists of best books. You couldn’t look on a 2012 book list without seeing Gone Girl listed. A psychological thriller, a missing wife, clues that keep piling up and keep you turning the pages—what more could you ask for? (As it turns out, mixing all the best things together can make a really bad thing, as Tracy Morgan figured out on 30 Rock by trying to mix all great forms of music into one song, but I digress). It’s called a dark thriller for a reason, you know.

The day of Nick and Amy’s wedding anniversary, Amy disappears without a trace. As the police investigate, the clues seem to point toward Nick as the cause for her disappearance, and maybe even murder. Though it doesn’t look good for Nick because he’d been keeping things from the police, he maintains his innocence. Things aren’t always as they appear….

This is a great theme of the book. The book is written from alternating views of Nick and Amy, which really messes with your brain. If there’s anything to be said, it’s that your view of a character can be completely changed, chapter to chapter, depending on the point of view. This is another interesting point; the same situation with the same facts and events can be manipulated to manipulate the reader, and it gets even more complicated when some facts are revealed and others withheld. The presentation is the thing.

Flynn’s strong suit in the book is presenting these situations to you in order to get you to feel a certain way, but just when you have a handle on the characters and have an idea of what really happened, she rips the rug from under your feet and presents new facts, another point of view. While some people complain that it’s not fair to the reader to play with their emotions, I would like to remind them that this is a psychological thriller, and that is the best part of suspense. Presenting everything all at once wouldn’t be exciting, and this wouldn’t be a good suspenseful story.

I can’t promise that you will like any of the characters. I have to remind myself time and again that it is not a necessary part of literature (to have likeable characters), but it does help in certain books. In The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, apart from atrocious decision-making and a lack of morals (or any lesson-learning whatsoever), the main character is not likeable at all. In that case, it wasn’t a good choice since empathy is a necessary part of that coming-of-age tale. Gone Girl’s not necessarily likeable characters improve the story and play up on the reader’s perception of the story, what actually happened, who did it, and can completely change the ending of the book.

Boy, did this list creator get at least one thing right, am I right?

I don’t want to ruin anything, and a lot of this novel depends on not knowing, so I will end it here. It might be worth mentioning that this book was “featured” on Orange is the New Black, the Netflix original series. However, Piper Chapman, one of the main characters, clearly didn’t like it as much as I did. Which means the writers didn’t like it very much. This is odd, considering crime and drama are their specialties. They could at least admit that, most opinions set aside, though you may have a full seat, all you will need is the edge.

Oh, and you're a great judge of character, aren't you?

Rating: 8.75 out of 10 stars

You might want to check out Gillian Flynn’s previous novels, if you liked her writing or suspense style, Dark Places and Sharp Objects (Dark Places didn’t really appeal to me, but Sharp Objects seemed interesting). You might also like The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes, though it is worth noting that that one is more about serial killers and time travelling—it’s gripping and I have to give Ms. Beukes props for such an interesting concept. 

Me Talk Pretty One Day: Book Review

Go take a walk. Seriously. Walk around your house, around your hometown, around your neighborhood, around a city you've never been to before. Now tell me your thoughts and observations.  

It still won’t be as biting and critical as David Sedaris’ notes would be.

I picked up Me Talk Pretty One Day because I mistakenly thought that it was a funny story about a guy trying to learn French. There is a small piece about that, but really the book is a series of observations about his family, the French, Americans (and a sub-category of that: New Yorkers), meth-fueled art, and speech therapy coaches. It wasn’t a bad thing, it’s just that… I realized that I’m not overly fond of David Sedaris. Everyone called his work “hilarious”, “laugh out loud funny” and “sarcastic.” Fantastic, I thought. I like sarcasm and funny books. This should be good. The only part that I actually liked was the French teacher and her insults to the students. The rest of the book seemed like a self-indulgent pity party for Mr. Sedaris without trying to make it a pity party.

David Sedaris hates most things, most people, and wants everyone to love and adore him so that he can shove his success in their faces, turn them down or scoff at them. It’s like he wants to hate to want to be loved. Now there’s a psych case waiting to happen.

I didn’t like the period of his life that involved a lot of illegal drug-taking and so-called “art”, which is just post-modernist weird crap. I thought his family odd- past the point of funny and more into dysfunctional. I disliked his strange interests in things, choosing to learn “bottleneck”, “ash tray” and “lobotomy” in French over more practical phrases. Mostly, I disliked his overall personality. He is the type of person who would watch someone on the verge of a grisly death and memorize the details so that he knew how to tell the story to his friends later. Call me old-fashioned, but I call that morbid and crass.

However, there has to be a reason he is still writing books and people are giving these books good ratings: taste. There is clearly a market for snarky, bitter people who love themselves and love to hate to be loved. Ugh.

Basically, know your taste. Sure, it’s good to reach outside of your comfort zone and try something new (and this was quite outside of my comfort zone), but there’s no need to push yourself to continue something you dislike. For instance, I won’t be picking up another David Sedaris book anytime soon, though I will concede that I was oddly transfixed by a life so different from mine. It’s kind of like the feeling you get when you can’t look away from a car accident scene.

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5

You would probably like Larry David, Steve Martin, maybe Dennis Leary or Bill Burr. I’m not sure. Basically, any comedian who whines about how the world owes them something is a good bet for people with those “tastes.” You might also like Chuck Palahniuk if you enjoyed the morbidity and peculiarity, but would’ve liked it to be grittier. 

The Mark of Athena- The Mark of Series Gone Bad

House of Hades, the fourth installment of Rick Riordan’s second series set in the Percy Jackson universe, Heroes of Olympus, was released yesterday. Watch as the internet explodes in the next couple of days as Riordan fangirls gush over the new book following the dramatic cliffhanger of Mark of Athena. I know I haven’t reviewed The Lost Hero or Son of Neptune, but I read those before this year, so I won’t review them. Yet.

Before even touching this one, you should definitely read the two previous novels in this series (The Lost Hero and The Son of Neptune), and I would even recommend reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series before that. This is definitely not a standalone novel. Picking up right where The Son of Neptune left off, The Mark of Athena now features members from both Camp Halfblood and Camp Jupiter, and together they must embark on this dangerous quest and cooperate to defeat the giants and prevent oncoming doom onset by the Earth Mother Gaea. If that sounds weird to you, you haven’t even come close to the weirdness of Greek/Roman mythology.

To these Percy Jackson fans, Rick Riordan can do no wrong. While I found his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series interesting and fun (quick reads-you’ll breeze right through ‘em), they had so much in common with the Harry Potter series and- oh, you want me to list some of them? Allow me to draw some lines.

	Harry Potter	Percy Jackson
Main character	Harry Potter Black messy hair, green eyes Sometimes sarcastic humor Dreads summer (when he’s not at school) Strong-willed, down-to-Earth, brave, leader More of the brawn than the brains “The Chosen One” Missing both parents Solves “mystery” and fixes things before school ends Has supernatural abilities Hates bad family members- The Dursleys	Percy Jackson Black messy hair, green eyes Sometimes sarcastic humor Dreads school year (when he’s not at camp) Strong-willed, down-to-Earth, brave, leader More of the brawn than the brains Chosen One- at one time anyway Missing one parent Completes quest and fixes things before deadline, and before camp is over Has supernatural abilities Hates bad family members- Gabe Ugliano
Girl sidekick	Hermoine Granger Book smart Curly hair Eventually starts relationship with one of trio The straight-laced one, quick thinker	Annabeth Chase Book  smart Curly hair Eventually starts relationship with one of trio The straight-laced one, quick thinker
Boy sidekick	Ron Weasley Not so great with girls, but eventually gets a girlfriend Plucky comic relief Makes jokes to lighten mood	Grover Not so great with girls, but eventually gets a girlfriend Plucky comic relief Makes jokes to lighten mood
Twins	Fred and George Weasley Fun-loving pranksters who love mischief	Travis and Connor Stoll Fun-loving pranksters who love mischief
Movies kinda sucked?	Yes	Yes
Strong, evil bad guy	Voldemort, keeps coming back, sometimes works through other people	Kronos, keeps coming back, sometimes works through other people
School nemesis	Draco Malfow- bully	Clarisse La Rue- bully
Former good guy, current traitor	Peter Pettigrew Turned friends over to Voldemort	Luke Castellan Framed Percy and Co. and turned to dark side
Is one of trio scared of spider?	Yup- Ron Weasley	Yup- Annabeth Chase
Does someone own invisibility clothing item?	Indeed- Harry’s Invisibility Cloak from his father	Yes- Annabeth’s Yankee Cap of Invisibility from her mother

Okay, so maybe that got a little obsessive, but this was as much for my own curiosity as it was for your education. This is not to say that just because they have a few (okay, many) similarities, either of them is bad or that Rick Riordan’s series is inferior. This is merely to say that Riordan certainly borrowed some things from Rowling, maybe unconsciously or unwittingly, and they’re both fun adventure series for kids and young adults. Hell, my mom enjoyed both series.

 

This could be chalked up to the fact that every movie poster is the same these days...

This brings me to my main point—it’s good as long as it remains a fun adventure series. Mark of Athena has traded that fun, adventurous tone for romantic drama, strained friendships and over-the-top cliffhangers. Gone are the days of a trio on exciting adventures and danger as they fight to save their camp. No, now they have to save the world, and the cast has swelled to include more people to keep track of, more storylines, more drama and crushes.

I know for a fact that it’s not because I don’t enjoy romantic sub-plots; I can be a huge romantic sap if I want to be. However, when the adventure and action, which are the main points of this series, take a backseat for teenage angst, fighting over romantic partners and more time spent gazing longingly into each other’s eyes, I start to roll my eyes. What is this, Twilight? Look, someone even compiled all the staring scenes, and it's almost half an hour. Even a minute of staring is too much! 

I missed the times when romance came second to, I don’t know, saving the world??  Honestly, at one part, while they’re rushing to save the world on a deadline, Annabeth and Percy stop, take in a sunset, and spend a few paragraphs talking about how they wish they could just be together. REALLY? Wouldn’t it be a better time to yearn for that when people’s lives depend on you, as well as the fate of the world? Shouldn’t you be more focused on saving the planet than a sunset? Ugh. My eyes hurt from rolling into the back of my head so much. Just get over it, complete the quest, be heroes, then find appropriate time to make googly eyes at each other. How would you like it if Michelle and Barack Obama (that’s right, they rule together for some reason) put off making a decision on a nuclear war to share an ice cream sundae and wish they could just be a normal couple?  When did Indiana Jones say “This is a good time to make out with Marion, right when I should be stopping the Nazis from taking over the world and unleashing the horrible energy of the Arc!” Oh, right, NEVER. Because he prioritizes his time effectively. It comes with the job; save the world first, fall asleep as girl is kissing you second.

So what is the solution? Limit the relationship drama. I didn’t read this series for it to turn into fricking Grey’s Anatomy (do they actually do any hospital stuff?? I’ve never actually seen the show) with mythology.

 

Because discussing your relationship over brain surgery is always the best option...

Rating: 5 out 10 stars

You’d like this series if you liked Harry Potter, and you might also like… uh… the Hunger Games series I guess? Or if you’re into Greek Mythology, those stories by themselves are quite entertaining.