Top 5 Wednesday – February 24th, 2016

Top 5 Wednesday was created by Lainey at Gingerreadslainey. Every week, book reviewers all over the world are given a bookish topic and respond with their top 5 books (or elements of books) that relate to that topic. Click here for the Goodreads group if you would like to learn more about Top 5 Wednesday and join in!

This week’s Top 5 Wednesday topic is the top five worst love interests (male or female). I don’t read many romance heavy stories, so I was unable to think up five love interests that I didn’t like. Instead, I’ve decided to go with last week’s Top 5 Wednesday topic since I was unable to do it on the day. Last week’s topic was the top five suggested books (books recommended to you) that you loved.

It goes without saying, if there are any books on this list that you haven’t read yet, I recommend them to you! 😀

5. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

I actually bought this one as a Christmas gift for my mom. She ended up loving it and immediately told me I needed to read it too. This story was everything I had hoped for—lovely, heartwarming, and with spectacular writing to boot. It was a wonderful read, and an absolutely perfect book for book lovers. I promise, I will have a review up for this one day!

4. Alice by Christina Henry

If there is one thing I like more than a retelling, it’s a dark retelling. This one was recommended to me by my friend Heather from The Sassy Book Geek. It was disturbing and twisted and creepy and fantastic—overall a fascinating and extremely creative reimagining of a classic and well-loved tale.

Full review coming very soon!

3. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

I’ve been a massive Neil Gaiman fan for a long time, so this was already on my radar. However, I read it when I did because my best friend had just finished it and kept going on about how good it was. Actually, I was over at her house and she handed me the book and told me to start reading right then and there; that’s definitely the sort of recommendation you know you can trust! Obviously, I ended up absolutely adoring this novel—in fact, I think this may be my favorite Neil Gaiman novel that I’ve read so far.

2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This one will come as no surprise to anyone since I rave about it (and Gillian Flynn) way too much! On top of the entire world talking about this book, it was specifically recommended to me by both my best friend and my dad. My best friend and I have extremely similar reading tastes, so I always trust her recommendations—and she loves Gillian Flynn. A few months before I picked it up, my dad also read and loved this, so when I was out visiting my best friend at school, I began reading it. It rapidly became one of my favorite novels of all time, and made Gillian Flynn one of my favorite authors.

Click here to read my full review!

1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Though I had known about these novels for ages, this is another recommendation that I have to credit my mom for. If you’ve been around my blog for a while, you probably already know that this is one of my favorite novels of all time (and that it’s another one I talk about way too much!). I attempted reading my first Sherlock Holmes novel—The Hound of the Baskervilles—when I was far too young to really enjoy it, and thus, I assumed that I did not like Sherlock Holmes…oh boy was I wrong! I had to read The Speckled Band in class a few years later and enjoyed that, but it wasn’t until my mom gave this to me as a gift one holiday that the obsession truly began! ❤

Click here to read my full review!

What are some recommendations that you’ve received and ended up loving? Do you have any favorites you would like to recommend? Let me know in the comments!

-Ariana

Top 5 Wednesday – December 30th, 2015

Top 5 Wednesday was created by Lainey at Gingerreadslainey. Every week, book reviewers all over the world are given a bookish topic and respond with their top 5 books (or elements of books) that relate to that topic. Click here for the Goodreads group if you would like to learn more about Top 5 Wednesday and join in!

This week’s Top 5 Wednesday topic is your top 5 favorite books that you read this year. While I didn’t read nearly as many books as I had hoped that I would, this year was pretty fantastic in terms of quality of books read. It was difficult to narrow this list down to just five, but there were definitely a few novels that particularly stuck out this year. These have not only become some of my top favorite novels of all time, but all of these authors were new to me and are now on my favorite authors list as well!

5. Jackaby by William Ritter

This was pitched as “Doctor Who meets Sherlock”, so of course I had to read this immediately—and thankfully, it did not disappoint!

Click here to check out my full review!

4. Cinder by Marissa Meyer

This was my first read of 2015 and an absolutely brilliant way to start off my reading for the year.

Click here to check out my full review!

3. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This was my first Gillian Flynn book, and by far one of the most intriguing and captivating novels that I read all year.

Click here to check out my full review!

2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

This is my first time making my way through this series and I am kicking myself for having put these novels off for so long—they are fantastic!

Click here to check out my full review!

1. Vicious by V.E. Schwab

This was my most recent read and my last completed book of the year—and it was definitely my favorite of them all!

Review coming soon!

Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

My Rating: 5/5 TARDISes

Series: Standalone

Date Published: June 5^th, 2012

Publisher: Crown Publishers

Pages: 419 pages

Source: Purchased

Links: Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Synopsis: On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy’s diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media–as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents–the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter–but is he really a killer?

As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

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This is a spoiler-free review.

Gone Girl is an incredibly well crafted, captivating mystery. With an ingenious plot and many intriguing characters, Gillian Flynn creates a fantastically twisted and unpredictable novel. As I am finding, it is an extremely hard book to review without spoilers, though I am giving it my best shot. I am a huge fan of crime and mystery novels, so I knew going in that this would be an enjoyable read for me; however, I did not expect to love it quite as much as I did. I ended up absolutely adoring every aspect of this book, and just this one novel has already made me a major Gillian Flynn fan.

Though this is a fantastic read no matter what, going into this novel knowing next to nothing about the story would be the best way to go about it. Flynn has skillfully constructed an exceedingly complex plot, with an astonishing amount of layers that unfold slowly as it progresses. There are so many different threads, going off in all directions, which are brought back together in the end and connected to each other. I was amazed by how carefully created the storyline was; how even the smallest elements addressed early in the novel had played a significant role by the end. As a writer myself, I truly admire the amount of cleverness and expert planning that must have gone into the assembling of this narrative.

In my opinion, one of the most impressive aspects of this novel is how frighteningly realistic everything is. The scenarios are outrageous, but they never get to the point of being unbelievable; they are unlikely, uncommon, but humanly possible.

Gone Girl is also full of vivid characters that add further dimension to the plot, many times due to their unreliability. Almost all of the characters that are central to the telling of the story have their own secrets that they are keeping from each other, as well as the reader. We are typically trained to trust the narrator in the stories that we read, but in this novel, it quickly becomes clear that this is not something that can be done.

This is not a story of good versus evil. All of the characters have their faults; all of them are in the wrong in some way or another. No one person is entirely likeable or worthy of full sympathy, and that is what ends up making all of them so enjoyable and interesting. They add further mystery and intrigue to the narrative, and their lack of truthfulness keeps the reader on their toes, wondering whether or not to trust.

Tying in with what I said earlier about realism in the plot, these characters do outrageous things to each other and to hide incriminating facts, however they are extremely believable. It never reaches a point where you are questioning their ability to pull off what they do. You may wonder how people could do such things; how they could get to the point where they feel they need to behave this way. But nothing is ever an unrealistic feat, and recognizing this makes the overall story even more unnerving.

And now we come to my absolute favorite part about this novel: the writing style. I completely fell in love with Flynn’s writing style and felt that it carried me seamlessly through the novel. She does a fantastic job of setting the tone, and her words flow consistently well throughout. She captures the voices of her characters perfectly, and paints a very sharp and chilling picture.

Suffice it to say, I loved this book and very highly recommend giving it a try. This is by far one of the most well-written and expertly plotted novels that I have ever read. It was a fast-paced, disturbing, and startling read, that had me completely captivated from page one. It takes a lot of skill to construct something like this, and I am incredibly impressed by her talent as a writer. Gillian Flynn has created a masterpiece.