Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I can’t believe I haven’t written a review for Gone Girl yet. How do these things happen to me? Oh, that’s right, TWD obsession. Well, fear not my friends. The time has come. Gillian Flynn sure does know how to pull the feelings from you, doesn’t she?

Amy and Nick are a thirty-something married couple who’ve hit some financial and family trouble. They are now back in his small Missouri hometown, and we open on the morning of their 5^th wedding anniversary. The narrative shifts back and forth between Nick present day and Amy’s diary from the beginning of their relationship. Because Amy’s gone missing and it doesn’t look good. We go from there.

The film trailer was released a few weeks ago, and so I knew I had to get on reading Flynn’s latest and greatest. I refused to even watch the preview before I’d read the book. GG was a huge darling a couple of years ago and fell victim to the hype monster, which means I refused to read it until things had calmed. While I waited, I read her first two novels – Sharp Objects and Dark Places. One I loved; the other I liked.

Gone Girl is a whole other thing. What impressed me so much about Sharp Objects were the risks Flynn was willing to take, particularly in making people nasty and the imagery even worse. She had a grit and a bluntness to her work that was able to shock even me. GG is different in its way but not any less shocking. But this time, she’s focused primarily on making you hate all of the people just because they are shitty people. The worst, really. You think someone can be redeemed and then shit just falls apart. You will want to punch everyone and fling the book across the room, but you will not be able to stop reading. And that’s the pleasure of Gone Girl. It grabs you, shakes you, and won’t stop until you’ve turned the last page.

Was the novel perfect? No. Personally, I had moments where I wondered what was the point, you know? All those pages just to see the lengths people will go to out-do one another. To see how shitty we can be at the core of who we are. To see how much our childhood or rearing can fuck us up? To just play with the audience like we’re the mouse and Flynn’s the cat? But it’s one hell of a ride so who cares?

The Weirdness by Jeremy P. Bushnell

The Weirdness by Jeremy P. Bushnell is exactly that, weird. But in the best of ways. It’s a Faustian tale for the millennial generation.  Throw in a Devil-owned Lucky Cat, and well, you had me at hello.

Billy Ridgeway is kind of an odd, hipster-ish guy. He’s 30, works at a sandwich shop, and lives in Brooklyn. He’s a writer without much success and has a girlfriend who may or may not be that into him. But one day, Satan shows up in his apartment looking to make a deal. Help him retrieve his lost Lucky Cat in order to save the world from a fiery extinction, and he’ll grant Billy his one true desire – the chance to become a happily published novelist. How can Billy refuse?

If you aren’t sold by now, you might as well quit reading. Because if that synopsis doesn’t push all your buttons, this isn’t the book for you. Sorry. For those still with me, I really think you’ll love The Weirdness. It’s the perfect beachside romp filled with clever moments and well-written sentences. Bushnell gets NYC and failed writers in a way that makes this fantastical story feel very, very much like some truth you never thought you needed to know. The whole story is mostly just a giant metaphor of what writing is like these days, particularly being an unpublished writer. Which is pretty much just the most amazing metaphor, certainly the most fun, that I’ve read in a long while.

The Weirdness gets two thumbs up and several wet, sloppy kisses from me. I think most readers – from the casual to the very serious – can find something to love here. The sci-fi/fantasy kids get a nonstop, crazy adventure. The literary folks get beautiful writing and a plethora of smartly done literary devices and allusions. There’s religion and romance, if that’s your bag. And werewolves. Because someone out there always needs werewolves.