Book Review: The Good Girl

Mary Kubica's debut, The Good Girl, is better than any debut has a right to be.

This book had been on my list for awhile when I heard Kubica speak at the Tucson Festival of Books. She told the kind of "how my agent found me when I wasn't even looking" story that tends to make unagented writers feel stabby. She comes across as sweet and soft-spoken and uncomplicated.

I read her book anyway and I was so surprised to find such a gritty, complex story that is, in places quite dark. The characters are flawed and even damaged, yet she manages to express their humanity so that readers feel compassion for them within the first few pages.

The alternating first-person narrative is also something I wasn't expecting in a debut. The Good Girl tells the story of a kidnapping through the perspective of the girl's mother, the detective working the case, and the kidnapper. And it totally works. It also tells the story in two time periods: before and after the abduction. And it totally works. The plot is original and has unexpected twists. I haven't had this much fun reading since Gone Girl.

Movie Review: Gone Girl

I don't usually review movies, but since I reviewed the book yesterday and said I'd be seeing the movie, I'm making an exception.

Often, when I love a book, the movie can be a disappointment. It's really hard to tell the same story from an external point of view when it was originally internal. The screenplay was written by the same author who wrote the novel and - as a writer - I was blown away that she was able to tell this story so well in both mediums.

There are a few minor changes to condense the story, but fans of the book will find all the things that were great about the read have been translated into the film. We watched the movie with a couple who hadn't read the book and they enjoyed it too.

Book Review: Gone Girl

This is a difficult book to review without giving anything away. It's about a marriage that has begun to fall apart when the wife goes missing. Did the husband do it?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It's told in alternating narrative and both main characters are writers. It's so well-written with such intricate details and insight into relationships between men and women and real characters with inside jokes. Halfway through the book, I was already looking forward to rereading it, and by Part Two I had forced my boyfriend to start reading it. He got custody of the book when I fell asleep and stayed up until 2am to finish it.

Gone Girl is clever, fun, edge of your seat reading. Tonight, we're going to see the movie and can't imagine how they'll translate it for the screen.