"Because Isn't That the Point of Every Relationship: To Be Known By Someone Else, To Be Understood? He Gets Me. She Gets Me. Isn't That the Simple Magic Phrase?"

Yes, I read Gone Girl in a week. More appropriately, I read two-thirds of it yesterday. From the time I woke up to around midnight, that was pretty much all I did. I left to meet a friend for lunch, but that was it. Man, I love holiday weekends.

So I did get totally sucked in. And I am beginning to be convinced that if I had it all to do again, I would want to be a detective. Not with the whole actually being a cop part, but the solving crimes part. Because I could just read mystery stories and be a happy camper. Or watch non-stop marathons of Law and Order: SVU or Dateline (not that I do that now or anything...I swear. I actually had to take a break from the Law and Order marathons because it was beginning to give me a horribly bleak outlook on the world. And I would go to bed convinced that someone was going to break into my apartment in the middle of the night. I don't need that kind of paranoia).

Without giving too much away, and you can probably already tell this from the commercials for the movie, but Gone Girl is simply that: a story about a husband whose wife disappears. So the book centers around the investigation of her disappearance, and is told in alternating chapters from the husbands perspective and then the wife's perspective via journal entries from the previous 7 years of their relationship. The writing is very clever, as the voices of the 2 characters are so well-defined (often in more ways than 1...). And not just the storyline is clever, but what the characters come to realize about themselves, each other, who they are/were in their relationship together, who they wanted to be, and who they were pretending to be. I honestly can't wait to see the movie because I think that in David Fincher's hands, the book could be masterfully translated. Maybe I can sneak that in before the end of the holiday weekend...

But perhaps what I loved most about this book was that feeling of getting so immersed in a book, that I literally couldn't put it down. Even while making dinner, I was kind of half reading in between doing things. It has been a really long time since I gotten that into a book I was reading, and I just brings me so much joy. I do think it was a testament to how well done the book is for a modern story. I really hope to keep that craving for reading at the forefront of my noggin, and get so very taken with the next books I read, where I just fly through them, completely entranced with the story and writing.

But I'm not necessarily holding my breath on that. Because I'm moving on to Hamlet. So the bf and I are HUGE fans of Sons of Anarchy. Like, binge watched all 6 previous seasons for a large portion of our summer (who needs sunshine and warm weather when you have a motorcycle club and seriously graphic violence?). And I know Kurt Sutter has said that the show was based off of Hamlet (and on it's surface, that seems clear, right? Father is killed by stepfather, who then marries mother, and how the son discovers this, and the events that occur as a result). But I always seem to get the impression that there's so much more than just that. As an obvious place to start, many of the episode titles are quotes from Hamlet. So I'm looking forward to really reading it carefully and understanding each and every passage, and then looping it back to SOA. So it might sound strange that I'm reading Hamlet to better understand and appreciate a television show, but hey, if it's going to get me to read it in the level of detail that I plan on, then so be it.

Off I go. Hopefully, I'll be able to hunker down and read more during the holidays, but I'll be moving in a couple weeks, so I don't anticipate that happening too much. But I'll give it a shot!

Happy Saturday!

"The House Was Vile. She Shivered And Thought, The Words Coming Freely Into Her Mind, Hill House Is Vile, It Is Diseased; Get Away From Here At Once"

The Haunting of Hill House is in the books (no pun intended).

Like most people, I first read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson a very long time ago. I don't even remember when, I just know that I've known this story and it has been a part of my memory as long as I can recall. And I remember being very drawn to the dark, subversive, and very unexplained feeling to the story. And in her masterful way, Jackson brings that same feeling to The Haunting of Hill House. There is a strong psychological element to the way the story is told - there is as much going on in the characters' minds as there is action going on in the storyline.

The book is about Dr. Montague, a researcher of paranormal activity, who invites a few guests to stay with him for a while at a supposedly haunted house. Those guests include a relative of the house's owner, Luke, a flighty, kind of free-spirit, Theodora, and a shy, sheltered woman, Eleanor (Theodora and Eleanor chosen to come based on their documented histories with unusual, paranormal events). The story is told from the perspective of Eleanor, who has always wanted to live a life different than the one she was dealt, having taken care of her ill mother for many years and not having a good relationship with her sister.

At the base of it, the book is a good, old fashioned ghost story. The group of visitors experience many encounters with the forces who inhabit the house, from banging on bedroom doors, to mysterious voices in the night, to writing in blood on the walls. Eleanor initially despises the house, but little by little, become psychologically entrenched and attached to it. She begins to understand and feel where the house is coming from, and the house certainly seems to be targeting her to stay as well.

There are also a lot of very complicated dynamics between the characters, especially Eleanor and Theodora. They immediately take to each other like sisters (similar to the sisters who lived in the house long ago, which Theodora mentions many times throughout the book), but as the house begins to affect them, they come to be very distrustful and even cruel to each other. But so much of the character dynamics were done is such a subtle way, it isn't handed to the reader. You really have to read a lot into what is going on between them against the backdrop of the insanity of how the house is affecting their psyche.

Would definitely recommend it for a quick, scary book read. Not many do It better than Shirley Jackson.

I'm taking a quick break from the book lists to read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Yeah, I know, I know. I'm not a fan of reading books that are the "book of the moment" and I like to discover the books that I read by kind of coming across them organically. But like I said, I'm a sucker for a good mystery, whodoneit book, and from what I've read, this book sounds like it's pretty darn good. So I'm guessing it should probably be a quick read; I'm sure I'll get sucked into it and won't be able to put it down. After that, it's on to Shakespeare, I swear this time.

240 books to go.