About The Book:
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. 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?
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My Thoughts:
So I just finished reading this yesterday, and I absolutely loved it, and haven't stopped raving about it since!!
I'm trying to get everyone to read it by telling them its about the ups and downs in a marriage in its early years; if only they knew!!
I loved each and every twist and turn although the final U-turn left me a little disappointed, but I guess I wouldn't understand unless I was in that very position, faced with the decision of whom to destroy; your spouse or yourself!
Loved the writing style, with hers and his versions of the story, usually its always one-sided, but this was different and refreshingly so.
The best book I've read in a really long time. READ IT!!!
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Memorable Lines:
I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?
There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.
People say children from broken homes have it hard, but the children of charmed marriages have their own particular challenges.
He comes when I call, and look how well groomed! Wear this, don’t wear that. Do this chore now and do
this chore when you get a chance and by that I mean now. And definitely, definitely, give up the things you love for me, so I will have proof that you love me best.
I don’t know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dogeared script.
The older women keep swirling around me, telling me how Maureen has always said what a wonderful couple Nick and I are and she is right, we are clearly made for each other. I prefer these well-meant clichés to the talk we heard before we got married. Marriage is compromise and hard work, and then more hard work and communication and compromise. And then work. Abandon all hope, ye who enter.
For so many years, my husband has lauded the emotional solidity of midwesterners: stoic, humble, without affectation! But these aren’t the kinds of people who provide good memoir material. Imagine the jacket copy: People behaved mostly well and then they died.
My mother had always told her kids: If you’re about to do something, and you want to know if it’s a bad idea, imagine seeing it printed in the paper for all the world to see.
I was the guy who left the bar early if a woman was getting too flirty, if her touch was feeling too nice. I was
not a cheater. I don’t (didn’t?) like cheaters: dishonest, disrespectful, petty, spoiled. I had never succumbed. But that was back when I was happy.
Love makes you want to be a better man— right, right. But maybe love, real love, also gives you
permission to just be the man you are.
She should have just left, bundled up what remained of her dignity. Take the high road! Two wrongs don’t
make a right! All those things that spineless women say, confusing their weakness with morality.
There is an unfair responsibility that comes with being an only child—you grow up knowing you aren’t allowed to disappoint, you’re not even allowed to die. There isn’t a replacement toddling around; you’re it. It
makes you desperate to be flawless, and it also makes you drunk with the power. In such ways are despots made.
One should never marry a man who doesn’t own a decent set of scissors. That would be my advice. It leads to bad things.
I turned my back to her, and then I pictured her with a knife in her hand and her mouth growing tight as I disobeyed her. I turned back around. Yes, my wife must always be faced.
Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times. Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all have seen, undisciplined love is disastrous.
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