GONE GIRL BY GILLIAN FLYNN:: A BOOK REVIEW

This is one of my all time favorite rooms from Elle Decor.  I am crazy for floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with leather bound books, but to do something as decadent as add a formal dining table to the mix just slays me.  I am constantly dreaming of the day when I will have a room designated as the 'library'. The thing that will please me most is to know that the books on my shelves won't be there for mere decorative purposes but because I have read them, spent time with them, shared a laugh, a cry and many of them I have wanted to stay with longer and not wanted the story to end. Do you know that feeling of both wanting to get to the last page of a book and that feeling of total dejection when you finally finish? I think that is the definition of bittersweet.  I read a lot of non-fiction and often books with a scientific bent, it's to be expected from a girl that has a subscription to the Smithsonian magazine, right?  My reading is not usually what one would consider light. I like to be challenged + awed and want that feeling of wanting to learn more.  I think a good book sets you to researching, let the treasure hunt begin!

I caught a bad summer flu the day before yesterday, it side-swiped me out of nowhere, at around 3p.m. that afternoon I had buckled to the sensation of my bones feeling like they were replaced by rubberbands and my brain feeling like it was on fire. I crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling unable to sleep.  I decided to read, but didn't have anything new on my nightstand or on my Kindle. I looked around for something easy and light in the Kindle bookstore, something that would take my mind off of all the work I needed to be doing instead of the general state of malaise I was in. I got the hankering for a thriller/mystery.  I ended up downloading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn that had mostly glowing reviews, it was on the New York Times Best Seller list and from the excerpt that I read it seemed that it would be an easy and enjoyable read, and it was until--the end. Not in a bittersweet way either, the end was terrible.  The end was so terrible that I had actually assumed that perhaps the last chapters of my book had not downloaded, that it was an error, there was no way that a book could end like this, no way, but it did.  I am still reeling from it.  I read all the 1 star reviews after not finding my 'missing' chapters which there were many (although the 5 stars out weighed them) and the reviewers all had the same lament, how could she end the book like that? In the mystery genre there is an unspoken code that authors adhere to and that is to wrap up all the loose ends and let the reader have their 'aha' moments, this author took us on a wild ride and then basically opened the door and shouted 'tuck and roll'. I couldn't believe I spent hours with this book, in high fever even and it ended like it did.  I think my disappointment is more in the fact that Flynn is a good writer, the story had a lot of fun twists and turns and although the characters were not particularly likeable you still found yourself wanting to know how on earth they were going to get themselves out of the situation they were in. Alas, it was never resolved, just like that.  I do not recommend this book unless you want to torture yourself or know how not to ever end a  book. Do you have any book recommendations?  Books to read, books to avoid?