Book Challenge Entry Six: A Book You Hated

Entry Six Prompt: A book you hated.

My Answer: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I love to read fiction and will likely try anything that sounds remotely interesting regardless of the genre. I do gravitate towards fantasy stories and young adult fiction more often than anything else but I’ve also enjoyed mysteries, slightly naughty romance stories, dystopians, and books with historical settings and that’s just been in the last few months. But I’m also guilty of following trends, meaning that if I hear that a book is to be turned into a movie I will most likely read it.

So that is why I picked up “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn a few months ago. Not only did I know it was going to be a movie but I had also seen it go out at the library again and again. And it looked like an interesting mystery series.

Now the gist of “Gone Girl” (for those that don’t already know) is that it starts with the disappearance of Amy Dunne. Soon enough evidence is found that suggests that she was killed by her husband Nick and the story is told through Nick’s point of view and through past diary entries of Amy’s. The good part was that the mystery really did keep me guessing and was fairly well thought through. What bothered me were the characters.

Here is where I’m going to spoil everything for you so don’t read if you don’t want to know/don’t already know what happens.

When it comes to a book I need someone to root for. That person doesn’t necessarily have to be good but there has to be something redeemable about them. No one in this book is redeemable. Nick is a cheating twisted man boy. Amy, both in her so obviously faked diary entries (I thought they were suspicious even before I found out they were fake/planned because nobody would write diary entries like that unless they are meant to be read. I’m a writer and I didn’t even write entries like that back when I kept a diary) and when we actually see her return and hear her methods. She’s a psychopath and by the end of the book I literally hoped Nick and Amy would just end up killing each other.

And, even worse, there was no justice and no resolution. Months later I still don’t get it.

The Importance of a Word

You know how sometimes you hear a word and it just sticks with you? It's happened to me and it truly makes me realize just how important words can be. So I'm going to share with you the story of that one word that I always seem to notice nowadays.

Back in 2008 I was just beginning a relationship with the man I now man to marry and we were talking mostly via online messaging. On one evening he used the word "reticent" to describe me which was interesting because I didn't know what the word meant which hardly ever happened (not to be a word snob but I've always been pretty good with words and context clues to find out what words I don't know actually mean).

When one is reticent they are quiet, restrained, so on and so forth which is a perfect example of me. I'm good with the written word and I can talk your ear off once I've gotten to know you but when you first meet me? I'll only talk in short awkward sentences or go hide on a couch and play with any animals you may have in the house.

But to continue on with the importance of words. I'm not entirely sure why it stuck with me so much but it has and I notice it every time I read it and now that I'm writing this article I really wish I had written down every instance where I noticed it because it would be interesting to see exactly what context it was always seen in and what type of books.

Some instances I found just by a search though my Kindle:
- Thirteen uses in the Sherlock Holmes series.
- Used in two of the Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare, set in a steampunk Victorian era.
- Used in four of the Goddess Summoning series by P.C. Cast each of which retells a myth with a modern twist.
- In four of the thirteen books I have received and reviewed for NetGalley. Each of those books had a historical element to them.

Just looking at that list makes me wonder if most of the books I've seen it in are of a historical nature. Is reticent an old school word that authors use to make modern books seem more time period appropriate?

Either way I find it interesting that just a simple occurrence, a simple mention of a word, made it so that I pay so much attention to said word.