The search for this year’s Gone Girl
Our friend in the book trades reports that every publisher’s rep claims to have this year’s Gone Girl, i.e. a compulsively readable, twisty crime thriller that could become a hit movie and a cultural phenomenon (Do you know how many couples watched the Fincher together in order to reassure themselves that their relationship was not as bad as Amy and Nick’s?)
One of the top contenders for the title, going by the number of books in stores, is The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. We opened it 3 hours ago and have not been able to do anything since. Halfway through the story, it’s hit all the Gone Girl marks:
– Requires great effort to put down
– Features a girl who IS gone
– Multiple narrators
– Unreliable witnesses, including an alcoholic who doesn’t just forget what she saw, but is unable to form new memories
– A marriage that is not as ideal as other people imagine it to be
– A victim who might not be a victim
We’re going to pretend to get some work done, then will continue reading the book. To really be this year’s Gone Girl the story must take a turn we didn’t see coming, include some nasty revelations, have awful media personalities, and feature characters we’re not sure we like or hate.
* * * * *
Finished. Not as cruel, no characters to love-hate, but riveting.