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shipperxSo, I watched "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" this weekend. I never read the book. Watching the movie, I'm somewhat glad that I never read the book. There's stuff that happens that I wouldn't want to read. Just... no thanks. The movie was somewhat interesting though. Not entirely my sort of thing, but interesting.
As far as reading goes, I've been reading Gone Girl.
I'm only half way through, but I have thoughts and feelings. As it's a mystery/crime novel, anything that I say would require spoilers so ...
Okay, I picked up on the 'twist' almost immediately. Long, long, loooooong before it was revealed.
What surprised me about the reveal was the claim that "diary Amy" was supposedly likable. "Diary Amy" tipped me off almost immediately. "Diary Amy" was awful.
The hate and contempt that she held for everyone was obvious despite the forced cheer. It seemed perfectly obvious to me that "Diary Amy" hated both her parents and her 'friends' and that all her bright chirpiness was really brittle terribleness. That said...
When the "twist" reveal came that Amy had faked and planted the diary and was framing her husband for murder, I was shocked at exactly how horrible "real" Amy was. She's a sociopath.
Nowhere is it admitted yet, but it drips off the character. She's a freaking sociopath. Only a sociopath could do the long plan and then top it off with a plan to kill herself to seal the deal (and -- of course- back out of said plan because... hello! Narcissists love themselves). Her entire persona(s) speak to sociopathy.
Not that the husband she framed for her murder is much better. He's pretty freaking awful in his own right. Not the exact same flavor as his wife, but he's a seriously damaged guy. All that bottled-up misogyny. (And -- speculation -- I'm betting the 'twist' further down the line is that he killed the girlfriend in a struggle while she was freaking out and it's another 'unreliable narrator' incident that he said that she ran away. I'm also betting that the Alzheimer's dad is playing into this somewhere down the line. It's like he's been Chekov's gun throughout the novel).
*sigh* Come to think of it, it's rather an ugly book as it's about truly terrible people. I have a post bubbling up in me about the way that pop-culture these days loves narcissists. They aren't even condemned for it most of the time (maybe because there are so many successful narcissists these days? I mean, every reality show is almost wholly populated by narcissists). A surprising amount of the time, the narcissism of protagonists is condoned.
Honestly, I'm a bit sick of unlikable protagonists.
(Although I did like the Hazel in "The Fault in Our Stars" because if anyone has an excuse for narcissism it's probably a terminally ill teenager, and while Hazel was no saint, she also had the pleasing ability to recognize other people and their pain as well... which makes her an exception to my bubbling yet still contained rant about narcissistic protagonists.
Anyway, Gone Girl... interesting book, terrible, awful, horrid people (but in the writer's defense, the author intends them to be terrible, awful, horrid people.)
As far as reading goes, I've been reading Gone Girl.
I'm only half way through, but I have thoughts and feelings. As it's a mystery/crime novel, anything that I say would require spoilers so ...
Okay, I picked up on the 'twist' almost immediately. Long, long, loooooong before it was revealed.
What surprised me about the reveal was the claim that "diary Amy" was supposedly likable. "Diary Amy" tipped me off almost immediately. "Diary Amy" was awful.
The hate and contempt that she held for everyone was obvious despite the forced cheer. It seemed perfectly obvious to me that "Diary Amy" hated both her parents and her 'friends' and that all her bright chirpiness was really brittle terribleness. That said...
When the "twist" reveal came that Amy had faked and planted the diary and was framing her husband for murder, I was shocked at exactly how horrible "real" Amy was. She's a sociopath.
Nowhere is it admitted yet, but it drips off the character. She's a freaking sociopath. Only a sociopath could do the long plan and then top it off with a plan to kill herself to seal the deal (and -- of course- back out of said plan because... hello! Narcissists love themselves). Her entire persona(s) speak to sociopathy.
Not that the husband she framed for her murder is much better. He's pretty freaking awful in his own right. Not the exact same flavor as his wife, but he's a seriously damaged guy. All that bottled-up misogyny. (And -- speculation -- I'm betting the 'twist' further down the line is that he killed the girlfriend in a struggle while she was freaking out and it's another 'unreliable narrator' incident that he said that she ran away. I'm also betting that the Alzheimer's dad is playing into this somewhere down the line. It's like he's been Chekov's gun throughout the novel).
*sigh* Come to think of it, it's rather an ugly book as it's about truly terrible people. I have a post bubbling up in me about the way that pop-culture these days loves narcissists. They aren't even condemned for it most of the time (maybe because there are so many successful narcissists these days? I mean, every reality show is almost wholly populated by narcissists). A surprising amount of the time, the narcissism of protagonists is condoned.
Honestly, I'm a bit sick of unlikable protagonists.
(Although I did like the Hazel in "The Fault in Our Stars" because if anyone has an excuse for narcissism it's probably a terminally ill teenager, and while Hazel was no saint, she also had the pleasing ability to recognize other people and their pain as well... which makes her an exception to my bubbling yet still contained rant about narcissistic protagonists.
Anyway, Gone Girl... interesting book, terrible, awful, horrid people (but in the writer's defense, the author intends them to be terrible, awful, horrid people.)
