I got to choose this month’s Book Hungry selection. I picked Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. This rarely happens, but Karla, Abby, Blake, Kelly, and I all pretty much had the same impression of this book. 

We HATED the main characters and by hated, I mean wanted to snatch them from the pages and murder them ourselves. 

“But, Patty,” you’re probably saying. “You gave it a 5.” 

Yeah, I know and that’s the thing about this book. It’s a total mind-screw that leaves you feeling wrecked and homicidal and sick to your stomach and shaking your fist at the sky, screaming, “I just invested x hours reading and THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS?!?  Are you effing kidding me?”

Sorry, no joke. 

Gone Girl is a… *thinks*… *thinks some more*…  well, story just doesn’t come close to describing this book, but we’ll stick with that word. Gone Girl is a train wreck of a story about Nick and Amy, a couple about to celebrate their fifth year of wedded bliss when Amy disappears. From the first scene, in which Nick imagines opening his wife’s skull, you know theirs won’t be a story that ends happily and yet, you just can’t look away. You turn the pages, you wince, you throw up a little, and you keep reading because — and this is a HUGE because — despite the unlikeable characters, Gone Girl is brilliant.

This was hard for me to get my head around… how can I hate the main characters but still like the book? I’ve done a lot of thinking about this and I think it’s a matter of professional respect. When I was querying one of my first novels, agents sent back the same rejection. “Your characters are not likable.” I took this to mean the book was not sellable and therefore, not publishable. Here’s Gillian whose book not only got published, it became a best-seller and yet, her characters are despicable. This blows my mind. 

The book is split into three parts. Within those parts, the chapters alternate point of view between Nick and Amy. Nick’s chapters are real time, starting with the day of Amy’s disappearance. Amy’s are diary entries going back to when she and Nick first met. Typical police procedure is to look at the spouse as the prime suspect and Nick is both stupid and arrogant, so the case against him practically builds itself. Amy is perfect. She’s the trust-fund baby of child psychologists-turned-author parents, who cowrite the Amazing Amy series. Amy’s diary entries frequently include little Amazing Amy references. 

Sounds great, right? Oh, and it is — because none of it is real. That’s what Part 2 is for. And just when you think you’ve got this all figured out, Gillian Flynn bashes you with Part 3 and I promise you, by the end of this book, you will hate Nick and Amy as you have never hated anybody before. 

Now…here’s the part where you have to ask yourself, “Why do I read?” I read because I enjoy getting out of my own head for a while and into someone else’s. I like falling in love. I like happy endings. But reading Gone Girl didn’t give me happy feelings. Does that mean it’s bad? On the contrary, I think it proves how gifted Gillian Flynn is at her craft. In On Writing, Stephen King says writing is telepathy. Reading this book is one hell of a mind f*ck. 

Oh, you’re probably wondering why Brussels sprouts. You won’t BELIEVE what Amy kept hidden in the freezer, inside a box of frozen Brussels sprouts. Are you cringing? Good. That’s how this book works. 

 Have you read Gone Girl? What was your impression of it? Please check out blog posts from the rest of my Book Hungry sisters: 

Kelly

Abby

Karla

Blake

7:30 PM Eastern Time

• Jennifer Castle, You Look Different in Real Life
• Stewart Lewis, The Secret Ingredient
• Alexandra Monir, Timekeeper
• Elisa Nader, Escape from Eden
• Mindy Raf, The Symptoms of My Insanity
• Stephanie Strohm, Confederates Don’t Wear Couture
• Mary G. Thompson, Escape from the Pipe Men!

Cassandra Clare’s first book in The Mortal Instruments series and soon to be a movie is about 15-year-old Clary’s newly-discovered ability to see the Shadow world and all the creatures of stories gone by like vampires, demons, and the like. Also part of the Shadow world are the Shadow Hunters, like the adorable Jace and his troop of demon hunters, Alec, Isabelle, and Hodge. When Clary’s mom disappears under highly mysterious circumstances, Clary turns to the Shadow Hunters for help. 

As far as stories go, it’s got something for everyone. There’s the cute boy, the best friend, the love triangle, the special powers and magical lore. My only complaint is that it gave me a little sense of deja vu. First, Clary and BFF Simon are ‘mundies’ — which means mundane. They can’t see the Shadow World. Until Clary suddenly can. This sounded a lot like ‘muggle’ to me. 

SPOILER ALERT: Then, you’ve got a whole Star Wars family dynamic that took the story into ‘creepy’ territory for me, but this is book 1. I’m curious to see if what we know in book 1 is true or just supposition. 

Finally, some of the dialogue felt way older than teen to me. I don’t know any teens who even know what ‘laconic’ means, let alone use it in a sentence. 

If you can forgive a few little issues like those, you’ll enjoy this book. The action and the fight scenes are vivid and the emotion/angst is gripping. Overall, I’d give 3 out of 5 ‘cups’. Why ‘cups’? So glad you asked! In this story, whoever holds The Mortal Cup gains all the power. 

Don’t take my word for it! Please visit my Book Hungry sisters’ website for their reviews. 

Have you read City of Bones? What did you think? 

Abby

Kelly

Karla

Blake

If you’re in Islandia, look for SEND in public places  

On this particular job, Billy, one of Ciel’s protectors and one of the two men vying for her attention, has his little sister along for a day at the zoo, where Ciel is pretending to be a woman hoping for a board appointment. Everything’s going fine until young Molly touches an orangatan and spontaneously adapts to it.

Which isn’t supposed to be possible.

That’s as much plot as I’ll reveal and it’s not spoiling the story – it’s back cover copy. The story proceeds in Ciel’s first person point of view in usually clever and frequently funny turns of phrase while she and Billy try to fix Molly’s problem. In addition to Molly’s spontaneous adapting, Ciel tries to handle her brothers, her mother’s annual Come as You Aren’t party, a certain CIA agent she’s been crushing on since her teens, her evolving feelings for Billy, and an attempted murder. There are enough twists and turns to keep even the best armchair detective guessing.

But you know what really got me?

The romance.

Okay, I admit it, I’m a total sap for love. This story has the most tender love scene I’ve ever read. It was face-fanning hot, heart-achingly sweet, and side-splitting funny all at the same time.

I give it 5 out of 5 pickles. Why pickles, you’re probably asking? And you think you know, don’t you? Pervs. You’re wrong. Remember the tender part in that love scene I told you about? Pickles. *sighs* Read it this August and tell me what you think of this love scene — well, the book, actually, but really the love scene.