In my last few posts, I have poured my heart out and addressed aspects of my past that have lead me to where I am today. Today, I am going to take a break from writing about my journey of self discovery and am going to focus on one of my favorite hobbies: reading.
Over the past month(ish), I have finished four books. Go ahead, call me a nerd/dork/bookworm/introvert. However, when I lack inspiration for writing, I read as much as I can. If i want to be a writer someday, I feel that reading is as important to training myself as writing is. So what has Hilary been reading?
First up: Catch-22. A classic book that I somehow was not forced to read in high school. Since one of my life goals is to read all the books on the BBC book list challenge and since this books is on my list of classic books I should be ashamed I haven’t read yet, I decided it was about time I read it. To give a very brief review: this book was extremely slow moving until the last 70 pages. I had to keep reading Sparknotes to understand just what the heck was going on. Not that it is a hard book to read, but I kept finding my eyes glazing over every other page. However, to give the book credit, it is supposed to be a unique novel in that its style was very different than other WWII novels at the time. To give the book credit, some parts were funny and it had a strong message about the absurdity of war. I wish though that I had read this book in high school to fully understand the historical and literary context.
Gillian Flynn is a phenomenal writer. I’m sure most of you have heard of or read her newest book, Gone Girl. I read that book too and thought it was great, until the very end. However, I love her development of characters, the dark themes she writes on, and the shocking twists in plot. This book came highly recommended to me by a fellow reader I have high esteem for (my mom). It was the beginning of October and I was looking for a creepy, dark book. Every October I get in the mood for gory slasher flicks and twisted, suspenseful books. Sharp Objects had everything I was looking for. Basic premise: a woman goes back to her home town to investigate the murder of two young girls. Like Gone Girl, this book hooks you right away and keeps you guessing until the climatic end. It’s a short book that can easily be read in one day if you have nothing else to do, or cancel all your plans because you are so enthralled in the story (which is what happened to me).
After reading Sharp Objects, I was hungry for more Gillian Flynn, more messed up protagonists, more crazy families, more twists, and more darkness! Again, my reading guru suggested that I must read this next Gillian Flynn book. Basic premise: one night a girl’s mother and two sisters are brutally murdered. She escaped and survived. Her brother gets blamed for the murders based on her testimony and is sentenced to life in prison. Years later, desperate for money, she finds a group of people willing to pay her to find out what exactly happened to her family to seek justice for her brother. Again, there are imperfect characters, a crazy family, and plot twists. What I like about this book and Gone Girl is that the stories are told from different perspectives. It switches from the present to the day leading up to the murder. This book is longer than Sharp Objects, but I finished it quickly because the suspense hooks you in. As I got closer and closer to the time of the murder, I forgot basic things like eating and sleeping. For anyone looking for a dark, well written read, I recommend these two books.
It was still October, and I was still on my creepy thriller kick. After doing some Amazon.com research, I came across this book. I remember it from working at a bookstore because I thought the cover was intriguing. Reviews of this book said that it was a lot like Gone Girl. Since Gillian Flynn can’t come out with new books as fast as I am reading them, I decided to give this book a try. Basic premise: a mom finds out her daughter committed suicide at her posh high school. She then gets a text saying her daughter didn’t jump. For the rest of the book, the mom is trying to find out what happened to her daughter. As she does this, she starts to learn there is a lot about her daughter she didn’t know. I went into reading this book expecting the same great writing Gillian Flynn puts out. That was a bad idea. This book only compares to Gillian Flynn in that it is told from multiple perspectives and is suspenseful. I expected huge plot twists. There were a few, but they were revealed rather casually rather than hitting you hard like Gillian Flynn’s books. I didn’t really like the mom character. I found her kind of flat. The daughter, Amelia, slowly became a more complex character but compared to Gillian Flynn’s books, she was pretty tame. Compared to Gillian Flynn’s books, the plot twists seemed very mild and not that shocking. Maybe they would seem shocking if you were a very sheltered person. Additionally, there were a lot of plot holes at the end. The whole book seemed to build up to a huge climatic ending with tons of intrigue, but then it seemed like the author got tired of writing and just ended the story as quickly as possible.
Conclusion: read Gillian Flynn. So far, I haven’t found any other books that compare to hers.
The Shadow Reader 