Summer Reading 2012: Gone Girl

(Gianna)
I know you. You are just like Liz when it comes to your summer reading. You want love: you want a bit of sex, wrapped in a bit more violence, with just a touch of regret, and a few tears. And if it’s a weekend…you want a vampire thrown in for good measure (and you know what I mean by good measure, right ladies!). [Is she talking about another Liz here? I just read a novel about an old man dying of cancer and coping with his regrets. I don't remember any vampires.] And you know, we can suggest books like that by the truckload [no we can't], but for fun we thought this summer we would suggest some books a bit higher on the literary ladder.

I am going to start with what I think is going to be the book of the season, and the one book you really will not be able to put down.  Yep, Gone Girlby Gillian Flynn will be the best book you read this summer, I promise. It has everything that our beloved Liz likes in her books: sex, lies, twists, and turns, and plenty of vampires. Okay no vampires, but you don’t really want vampires anyway. Stop saying you do, you don’t! [Gianna has pneumonia right now.  She may be delirious.]

Author Gillian Flynn. There's a twisted mind inside
that head.  Excellent.

Gone Girl is incredibly well written (fans of Dan Chaon and Kate Atkinson alike will not be disappointed), and while Dark Places was fantastic, and Sharp Objects was truly original…this one is better. This is it; this is the book you want to have your summer affair with. But you know, treat it right, and bring it to the beach or home for the weekend to meet your parents.  

One last thing; you will want to talk about this book to anyone who will listen, but you sort of can’t lest you spoil it. My advice is to buy two copies, one for you and one for the person who will ditch a day of work with you to dissect this read.  You should always have a friend like that. 

[I loved this book too. It's the Scott Peterson trial mixed with Double Indemnity.  And Gillian Flynn owns a fat cat and likes to write about twisted, dark women.  My kind of author.]

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

(Gianna)

Gillian Flynn is a bit twisted. Twisted in a good way, like Dan Chaon is twisted. She is a smart, original, and truly gifted writer. But my God she is twisted.

Daniel Woodrell

 Last year I read an excellent biography of Patricia Highsmith.  After I finished it, I immediately bought and read  (I had not up to that point read any of her books) Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The Price of Salt.  It is only now occurring to me after reading Flynn’s third excellent novel that she has Highsmith talent. She is that good.

Patricia Highsmith

I often think I have genre blindness. I always forget that Daniel Woodrell  (Winter’s Bone, Tomato Red) and even Kate Atkinson are mystery writers; in the same way I never really realized that Gillian Flynn is a mystery writer. Technically they are so good it doesn’t really matter, I guess, but I wouldn’t hesitate to put Flynn in with this group of top tier writers (and I am including Chaon in here, as I think he is an excellent comparison for those who like a more cerebral mystery).

 

Flynn has you by page one. She does, so, you know, don’t fight it, just give in. She had me on page one of Sharp Objects and Dark Places and she will get you too. Cancel your weekend plans, call in sick to work, order a pizza, and read. Her books have insanely good hooks, and much like Highsmith and Kate Atkinson, oh, the twists and the turns. [Liz here--I like her better than Kate Atkinson.]

 

Gone Girl is a literary novel, a thriller, a mystery, a book club pick that won’t disappoint when the discussion begins, and a beach read all at the same time. And if you want to talk "unputdownable," a completely overused made-up word in publishing; I feel no shame in using it for this book. Not only could I not put it down, but I was actually stressed out all the way through. I mean, it's great when a book entertains…but don’t you really want to be stressed out over a holiday weekend? I know I did.

The wonderfully twisted
Gillian Flynn.

A wife missing. A husband whose lies catch up with him one by one as he becomes the only suspect.  A novel where nothing is what it seems. Oh, and planning a wedding? This will give you pause.