Gone Girl -- Gillian Flynn

     The first half the book is told through the eyes of a husband whose wife has been kidnapped and flashbacks from his wife’s diary. The way the husband handles stress makes him look guilty even to people who love him. As facts come out, it becomes more and more obvious that he is the one who killed his wife and threw her body in the river. The husband denies any of this and has no clue what is going on most of the time. He supposedly racked up thousands of dollars on credit cards, (he swears he doesn't know what the police are talking about), a lady claims to be his wife’s best friend, (he says they barely knew each other), doctors report the wife was pregnant, (he says there’s no way that’s possible). It finally comes out that he was having an affair, which he actually was guilty of. By the time he finds all the things that were on the credit cards in his sister’s shed, I was completely convinced that he had multiple personalities or as was guilty as it is possible to be. When the second half starts, there’s a huge plot twist. We discover that everything we've been told is wrong and we find out what really happened to all of the characters. All of the characters go to a dark place and when the wife finally makes it home, things don’t end the way I felt they should.

     Up until the last twenty pages, it was a great story. The first half was well paced and when the plot twist came it was a total surprise. The second half of the book was surprising and unexpected. I hated the ending though. The characters were not likable by the end and were the complete opposites of their original personalities. The wife was a complete psychopath, controlling, and manipulative. The husband was controllable and awkward. When it finally looked like he was growing a backbone, the wife plays her final card and cements her control over him forever apparently. It was well written but I just have problems getting past the stupidness of the way the book ends. The characters get everything they want in the end even though they are awful people who do awful things to the people and world around them. Everything is wrapped up with a nice neat bow at the end. Maybe I’m looking for too much realism in this story but I wouldn't read it again. 

What did everyone else think?

The Book Thief -- Markus Zusak

     This book was nothing like I expected. I was under the impression that it was a book about a girl who stole books to keep them from being destroyed by the Nazis. I suppose that’s what I deserve for trusting movie trailers for book summaries. What this book was actually about is the childhood/teenager hood of a girl living with her foster parents in Nazi Germany. It is also narrated by Death. That right there should have told me this book wasn’t going to end well. As a matter of fact, within the first few paragraphs the reader is warned that it doesn’t end well.

     The story starts with Liesel witnessing the death of her younger brother on the train to her new home. The first book she steals (despite being unable to read) is a handbook on grave digging from the cemetery to remember her brother by. Then begins the introduction into her new life; her foster mother, who swears to express love; her foster father, who loves painting, playing the accordion, and always pays his debts; her best friend, Rudy, who is a local legend for his pranks and his bad luck. Her family eventually takes in and hides a Jewish man to repay her father’s debt to the Jewish man’s family. After a few years, things start to go all wrong because Germany isn’t doing too well in the war. The Jewish man leaves and is captured, Liesel’s father upsets the some local higher ups and is conscripted, food is hard to come by, and air raids happen quite often. Eventually the war comes to an end and inevitably no one comes through unscathed. Except for an afterward that takes place at the end of Liesel’s life, there is almost no information about what happens after the war.

     I still haven’t decided if I like this book or not. Aside from my initial misunderstanding about the subject, the narration of Death was obnoxious. Much of what he provided was unnecessary translations or weird tidbits of info that had nothing to do with the story. My biggest objection to the narration was that Death kept skipping ahead and hinting at the ending. It was almost as if the author could not think of any other way to provide information or wanted some kind of gimmick to grab the readers attention and didn’t know what to do with it once he found it. The story was well written and moving but the inclusion of Death and using German to hide swear words was so disruptive to the rhythm of the tale that it was hard to be fully immersed at times. I also feel there should have been more between the end of the last chapter and the afterward. The afterward takes place after Liesel had a long full life of marriage, adventure, kids, and grandkids but never explains how she meets any of these people or has any of the adventures. If the author was going to skip 60 or more years of her life, he shouldn’t have put so much emphasis on the years between the last chapter and the end of her life. If you are able to ignore some of these issues, it really is a beautiful story. Keep a box of tissues nearby if you are a crying type of reader because the end will rip your heart and stomp on it. 

Four & Twenty Blackbirds – Mercedes Lackey

Now I reviewed the other books in this series. I never could find a copy of this book but I had some luck. Some friends of mine bought a boxful of books and this one was in it. Fortunately, they were kind enough to lend it to me so I finally got to read it. 

From the summary on the back of the book: “...Tal Rufen is just a simple constable. But he really cares about his job, and when one of these murder/suicides happens on his beat he becomes obsessed. His superiors don't care -- the victims will never be missed, and their murderers are already justly dead. But every instinct Tal Rufen has cries out that he has seen only one small piece of a bigger and much nastier puzzle” That is all I can really say about the book’s plot without giving everything away. As any genre of book, this one leaves much to be desired. The mystery isn’t much of a mystery if you’ve read The Lark and the Wren (the first book in the series). I figured out who the murderer was in the first two chapters. As fantasy, there isn’t much magic or other races. The only spell that is actually performed and not just talked about is by the murderer to control the victim. There is a Haspur, the race of bird-men from previous books but his scenes are few and far between and while critical to the story, he is treated more like a plot device than an actual character. As a book belonging to a series about musicians, there are only the vaguest references to the Free Bards or even the Bardic Guild and characters from other books.

I had hoped that, like The Lark and The Wren, the book would change directions; the first half being Rune trying to qualify for the Bardic guild and the second half being her adventures with the free bards. I figured if it was so obvious who the murderer was within the first few chapters, then the second half of this more than 400 page book would have to do with the budding romance/crisis of faith that the Arch Bishop started having because of Tal Rufen or the building of the school they talked about several times or any of the multitude of things mentioned in what turned out to be throwaway conversations that might as well never have happened. They recapped the murders and the trail Rufen follows to Kingsford, four times. Four times! They have the exact same conversation with three different individuals and then they have a group session where they throw out the same ideas they had 50 pages ago. All in all, if this book had been half the length, it would have been an engaging story. As it stands, it was a whole bunch of repetition. It was worth reading once but I doubt I’ll ever feel the need to read it again.