Cure for Summer Boredom

If a book is boring, I end it, which I guess makes me kind of a fickle reader.  I've been known to reach the half way point, roll my eyes at all the filler, and never finish it, feeling like a slacker whenever I see it still lying on my nightstand. I even peek at endings occasionally... and feel guilty. 

** Feel free to judge. **

I don't know if that habit reveals that I can be impatient or what, and I definitely admire others who have the discipline to finish books no matter what.  My friend Mali will trudge through ones that she hates, just to be fair and get to the end.  I guess I feel like it's my right as a reader to bail if I'm too bored.

In the summer, I hate reading stuffy, overly lyrical books.  Maybe it's me rebelling because I'm forced to dole out boring summer reading assignments to my own students, which one professor at my college calls "readicide".   Why shouldn't summer be a time to read what you want? Time to indulge in guilty pleasures and be entertained, much like the cheesy Blockbuster movies that roll through movie theaters. Think: staying-up-until-2am-because-I-can-kind-of-reads.  

For my summer to do list, I wanted to read five new books because I felt the need to jam in as many as I could before September 5th.  Who knows when I'll be able to sit down with one once the essays start rolling in?  And I found a page turner.  Perhaps you've heard of it?

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

From the back of the book:  On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

My Take:  I bought this book after reading the odd range of descriptions in Amazon reviews: 

"Fiendishly clever." 

"The only book I've ever deleted from my Kindle."   

"A total mindf*ck."  

(Excuse the borrowed, salty language)

Luckily there were no spoilers posted, and I came away from Amazon with one impression: readers either love or hate this book.  Which camp was I going to be in?

I finished the book at 3 a.m. yesterday and have no. earthly. idea. how. to. review. it.  You won't find any spoilers here, promise, which means I'm putting duct tape over my mouth right now.  It's times like this that I really wish I had kept up with that book club... If anyone out there has read it and wants me to do a separate post where we can openly discuss the ending in the comments, let me know!

I basically see author Gillian Flynn as a maniacal puppet master, gleefully pulling strings to ratchet up the tension in this psychological thriller.  It's disturbing and twisted. It's nastily readable, and you too might be up until 2 am compulsively turning pages, and then feel the need to shower.   It's dark and slick as oil.  It's told in alternating points of view: husband Nick and wife Amy's past diary entries, and there are so many half-truths and evasions and lies... heartbreak and questions that if I had charted it would look like a convoluted roadmap.  It's well written, with the first page's depiction of Nick creepily musing, "I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts.  What are you thinking, Amy?" 

And what am I thinking?  Read it if you want something new.  You'll have an opinion on it, one way or another.  And you won't be bored.