Publishers do love a trend - it's the next Gone Girl! Gone Girl was very good, as was Gillian Flynn's backlist of Sharp Objects and Dark Places. They weren't like Gone Girl, but they were dark and creepy.
12 Books to Read if You Loved "The Girl on the Train" (That Aren't "Gone Girl")
Of course, as Sheldon Cooper would say - "once I know there is a twist, it has been spoiled already." I'm looking for it, and calling a book The Next Gone Girl, already tells me a whole bunch about the book, and I'm on edge waiting for the twist. That can lead to disappointment if the twist isn't what you expected.
I've read a few books lately that could all fit in that category - the next Gone Girl. I think what that means is a book with an unreliable narrator, could be told from alternating points of views, possibly crazy ladies and plot twists. What is meant is that they are psychological thrillers, or suspense.
The Widow by Fiona Barton, Her by Harriet Lane, and In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware.
Note: I think I will have to give some spoilers in my review of Her, but not the other two, as I compare and contrast the books. So, if you don't want to know details, it may be time to leave. I won't give away actual endings. But come back when you've read the book and we can dish. Unless you are like Jenny Who Reads the End; I know she's staying.
Full of suspense, but uses that style of writing where the narrator asks lots of questions, to further the plot. Will I like this style of writing? Sometimes it can be frustrating, but maybe this author will be okay? When Leonora is invited to a 'hen' party from an old high school, should she go? She hasn't spoken to that friend in years, but maybe she should. Maybe if she convinces her old friend, Nina, who is still in contact Nora will go. They go.
Who are these people? Nora doesn't know any of them.
Half way through, Nora wakes up in the hospital. From there, the story alternates between past and present and some *memory loss. Does Nora even remember anything? She has some thoughts, but is she imagining them? Where is her phone? Why isn't she asking the people that come to see her at the hospital any useful questions!?
I'm picking at this book but it read very quickly and was enjoyable enough even if the title, cover, and sing-song catch line on the cover someone's getting married, someone's getting murdered gave a fairy tale, Once Upon a Time vibe that didn't really match the story. I read it too quickly to notice any incongruencies in what happened, but I'm pretty sure they were there and would be fun to discuss. This was the least complex of the three books, and aspires to be a locked room mystery, but Miss Marple would have been all over the murderer in this one.
(*This device of memory loss was less annoying In a Dark, Dark Wood than in Elizabeth Is Missing, which I read last year. Using Alzheimers as a plot device was a cheap plot way to not let the reader have a clue what was going on. I knew that the main character was being told over and over again where Elizabeth was, but because she didn't remember, we didn't know. Instead of billing Elizabeth as a mystery, it should have been sold as 'What it is like to have Alzheimers.')
Good while I read it, lots of suspense. I won't, however, remember the story next month. I barely remember it a week later. I did have the thought when I read it that The Widow would pass the Bechdel test as the main character and the reporter that deals with her after her husband dies are both women. But, I guess they talk about him and the previous crime he had been accused of, so maybe it doesn't pass after all. But they were well developed characters with lives of their own and inner thoughts and that made the read feel more layered and complex.
This one has the alternating points of view, not so much twists as gradual reveals.
Now here is a book for which the comparison to Gone Girl does harm. Because there is not a big crazy plot twist. In fact, near the end, page 225, Lane has a character say as they talk about a book:
I don't say that I've read it and enjoyed it, though I found the final plot twist unsatisfying, as plot twists often are: nothing like life, which -- it seems to me -- turns less on shocks or theatrics than on the small quiet moments, misunderstandings or disappointments, the things that it's easy to overlook.
If that is not foreshadowing, I don't know what is! In fact, the next line is a response of " 'I don't think I like these characters,' he's saying: an annoying remark , one which I can't be bothered to engage." Double ha! Ms Lane, that is quite a response.
So, there are two women. Nina recognizes Emma on the street, but Emma has no clue who Nina is, (She does eventually have some frissons of recognition.) In some very weird ways, Nina finds ways to insert herself into Emma's life. Emma has young children and is feeling overwhelmed in that way you can when it doesn't feel like your kids will ever not need you. Nina is at a different point in her life, even though they are the same age. Nina's daughter is seventeen, she is a painter, and well off.
Lane keeps the level of suspense simmering throughout. Because we have read Gone Girl, the reader is on edge, waiting. What will be the reveal? How do they know each other? What could be the connection where Nina remembers Emma, but not Emma remembering Nina? The chapters are written alternating, and sometimes they recount the same event almost identically. Maybe one or two little differences. I found this just ramped up the suspense for me, watching for what tiny little differences would appear. When differences did happen, I noticed!
I'M GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE ENDING OF HER NOW.
The reviews at Librarything and Goodreads mostly seem disappointed in the ending. That was all? Except for the actual ending, which is very open ended and shocking, if you want it to be. Most reviewers hated it. I thought it was perfect. Because there are sociopaths living around us. And they are crazy but they can manage to appear normal for most of their existence. And I bet we (the non-sociopaths) dismiss and ignore the signs of them because it is beyond our understandings. Because when you realize what Nina did, and why, it is so subtle and over the top at the same time, that we really don't want to think that there are people like that living around us, hidden. In Gone Girl, the action just kept ramping up because Nick and Amy were both crazy, egging each other on. Here, there is no retaliation because no one even knows what is going on, except Nina.
