I'm about to be not-entirely-complimentary about Gone Girl. You might want to avert your eyes. (Don't avert your eyes. You'll be fine.)
In fact, I'm not really going to be non-complimentary about Gone Girl as I'm going to be non-complimentary of my journey to reading it. I'm sure you've noticed this if you follow the same people on twitter as I do and read the same blogs and whatnot, but if you haven't... Gone Girl is kind of a big deal. It's all thrillery and twisty and turning-y and everyone is reading it, and I thought, well, why not go for something thrillery and interesting to round off the year.
I bet you're thinking that all the hype killed it for me. And it did, only not in the way that you might think. See, it's not that the book isn't good. It is, it's really good, and it is very twisty and turny and it's all the things that people said about it. What it wasn't though? Was surprising. Which was kind of a mood killer from the beginning, because there were certain things happening that didn't sound like the book other people had described, and then when other things happened, I wasn't as surprised as I should have been (i.e. not really that surprised at all) because of the way people had written about it already.
It's amazing how much you can give away, even when you avoid spoilers. I guess with a book like this, everything is a spoiler.
That's why this isn't really a review at all, it's more of a moan- directed, I have to admit, more at myself than anyone else, because hello! If you wanted to read it, don't read lots about it, yeah? Weirdly enough, even though I was completely dubious all the time while I was reading it, Gone Girl still managed to make me suspicious in all the right ways, and I can't even think about how good it could have been if I'd read it without any previous information. But then, if I hadn't had any, then maybe I wouldn't have read it at all.
Gone Girl. It's pretty good. Just don't read anything about it, but read it.
I can relate. Gone Girl has been everywhere, including in my hands for all of maybe 10 pages before I abandonned it; I got bored. It's still on my floor, so I may pick it up at a later date, but history tells me I'll return it to the library and promptly forget it ever existed.
ReplyDeleteBut also, that's kind of the thing I've noticed about book blogging; a lot of people read the same things (which is fine in itself), but I love bloggers/readers with an extremely obscure and quirky taste that'll introduce me to books I've never heard of. I have a few of those scattered about, but more meta-literature reading is need, damn it. More! I'm trying to build a meta section of my library/pile of books on the floor.
Oh man, sometimes book bloggers are TOTALLY right when they're reading the same thing, but sometimes you eventually read it, and you're like... Really? That wasn't exactly the case with this, but still... I almost always find that the books that I like best are the ones that no one else has read, and I can be the first (well, not the first ever, but you know what I mean) to go 'This is great! I bet you've never heard of it, and you probably won't even read it, but it was SO GOOD!'
DeleteHaha, that sounds so hipstery to say "you've probably never heard of it"(I should know, people love to call me a hipster) I love it! But that's essentially me, reading books no one else reads (or cares to read) and just impatiently waiting for someone to fall in love with *MY* reads so we can gush over them together. Gushing alone just isn't that much fun.
DeleteOhhhhh, yeah, I totally get what you mean! I've read books like that before (fortunately BEFORE I read loads about them) and when I got to the end just thought "I can't review this book 'properly' because if I'd known all about it I wouldn't have liked it as much". THIS IS THE SHARP END OF BOOK BLOGGING. I've been trying not to read reviews of Gone Girl (obviously I was going to read yours because dude... come on) so hopefully I'll love it because YOU DID NOT SPOILER. And I thank you. :)
ReplyDeleteThis IS the sharp end of book blogging! The thing is, considering what I knew about it, it pretty much went the way I'd expected, as opposed to if I'd known NOTHING about it, when I would have been like *GASP* and *EGADS*!
DeleteBut I hope you'll like it better, and you should do really. But WE SHALL SEE! :)
I totally know what you mean! I bought a copy of Gone Girl partially because Time magazine wrote a really good review of it and it was everywhere on book blogs. It was good, but... ehhh. I knew half the things were going to happen because there were so many spoilers on the blogs that I read. Still chugging my way through it.
ReplyDeleteExactly! And it's not even like they were ACTUAL spoilers, just, like, certain feelings about certain things, and it's like... YOU ARE ACTUALLY SPOILING IT STOP THAT. It definitely wasn't as good as I was hoping for.
DeleteI've read books like that before, where you heard so much that it was just so good and so surprising, and then you get to reading it and it's kind of a let down. This is why I usually avoid hyped-up books usually, but then I feel weird because everyone but me has read this popular book.
ReplyDeleteBook popularity, it's such a double-edged sword.
It's SO tricky Sarah. Very much so. But it's not like this is terrible, it's just that I can see how it could have been MUCH better had I not had other information about it that I'm not going to mention because it is RUINOUS information! But yeah, it sucks.
DeleteSadness! This blogging thing is tricky. I'm glad you semi-liked it, but I'm sorry it went meh on you. I think you handled the spoiler avoidance really well here. I have a problem with assuming people have already heard the same things I've heard when I go to review stuff. NOT SO, SILLYPANTS.
ReplyDeleteOn to the next! Maybe Sharp Objects? I haven't heard as much about that one.
Yeah, it definitely wasn't TERRIBLE, but I absolutely knew (more or less- the ending was quite surprising!) what was going to happen and since a LOT of the point of the book was like suspense and things, that... was pretty useless to me. *whispers* I think I managed spoiler avoidance well because this isn't a review of a book so much as a critique of blogging about them, I guess!
DeleteThe book is NOT surprising? Cos I thought it was the opposite of that. Now I'm even more hesitant to read it cos apparently without meaning to, it's already been super spoiled and why bother.
ReplyDeleteI mean... It should be surprising if you don't know anything about it, but I knew enough certain things that it was like... Yeah, this isn't right and now I know what's going to happen, THANKS everyone. But I sort of wish I hadn't bothered, if I'm honest.
DeleteOh, sounds so familiar. I'm about to finish this one (likely today) and the same as you, it's not definitely something I'd pick up on my own, but "Gone Girl" definitely triggered my interest when I read about it in the blog world. Part of the charm was probably that you cannot really write a single thing about this book without potentially spoiling something :) I think it's this kind of book that can be summarised with "entertainment done well". Plus characters are quite interesting to observe.
ReplyDeleteIrene Jennings of Alaska Fishing Lodges