My 2018 Reading Wrap-Up

Over the past couple of years, I have documented every film that I have watched and reviewed them all using Letterboxd. As a way to motivate myself to read more, I thought I would do the same for what books I have been reading, using Goodreads as a way to set myself a reading challenge every year.

After reading only 6 books last year, I kept my target low this year and set myself the goal of 10 books. However, I somehow managed to read 20 books this year, mostly due to reading a book a day on my honeymoon.

Here’s how my 2018 challenge went, with a short review and rating for each of the books that I read:

Book Review: Sharp Objects

“I am a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It’s covered with words – cook, cupcake, kitty, curls – as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: babydoll. Pull on a sweater and, in a flash of my wrist: harmful. Why these words? Thousands of hours of therapy have yielded a few ideas from the good doctors.”

From the author of Gone Girl, Sharp Objects is Gillian Flynn‘s 2006 debut novel which follows Camille Preaker, a newspaper journalist who must return to her hometown of Missouri to report on a series of brutal murders when two young girls are abducted and killed. Long-haunted by her troubled childhood and fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family’s mansion, reacquainting herself with her neurotic and distant mother and the half-sister she barely knows, a precocious yet beautiful 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town. As Camille works to uncover the truth about these violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims a bit too strongly as she is also forced to face the psychological puzzle that is her own past.

Film Review: Dark Places

The second adaptation of a Gillian Flynn novel to make it onto the big screen, the first being the hugely successful Gone Girl which was directed by David Fincher and released last year, Dark Places is a crime mystery based on Flynn’s second novel of the same name, which was originally published in 2009. Dark Places follows Libby Day (Charlize Theron) who, at the age of eight, witnessed the brutal murder of her family in their rural Kansas farmhouse, for which her brother was convicted for at the time. 30 years later, running out of money and with doubts beginning to creep up, Libby agrees to revisit the crime in an attempt to uncover the wrenching truths that led up to that tragic night.

Book v Film: Dark Places

“I felt hollowed out. My mom’s death was not useful. I felt a shot of rage at her, and then imagined those last bloody moments in the house, when she realised it had gone wrong, when Debby lay dying, and it was all over, her unsterling life. My anger gave way to a strange tenderness, what a mother might feel for her child, and I thought, at least she tried. She tried, on that final day, as hard as anyone could have tried. And I would try to find peace in that.”

The second adaptation of a Gillian Flynn novel to make it onto the big screen, the first being the hugely successful Gone Girl which was directed by David Fincher and released last year, Dark Places is a crime mystery based on Flynn’s second novel of the same name, which was originally published in 2009. Dark Places follows Libby Day (Charlize Theron) who, at the age of eight, witnessed the brutal murder of her family in their rural Kansas farmhouse, for which her brother was convicted for at the time. 30 years later, running out of money and with doubts beginning to creep up, Libby agrees to revisit the crime in an attempt to uncover the wrenching truths that led up to that tragic night.

Book Review: Dark Places

“I felt hollowed out. My mom’s death was not useful. I felt a shot of rage at her, and then imagined those last bloody moments in the house, when she realised it had gone wrong, when Debby lay dying, and it was all over, her unsterling life. My anger gave way to a strange tenderness, what a mother might feel for her child, and I thought, at least she tried. She tried, on that final day, as hard as anyone could have tried. And I would try to find peace in that.”

The second book from the author of Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn, and originally published in 2009, Dark Places is a crime mystery which follows Libby Day, who, at the age of eight, witnessed the brutal murder of her family in their rural Kansas farmhouse, for which her brother was convicted for at the time. Thirty years later, running out of money and with doubts beginning to creep up, Libby agrees to revisit the crime in an attempt to uncover the wrenching truths that led up to that tragic night.

My 2015 Reading Wrap-Up

Over the past couple of years, I have documented every film that I have watched and reviewed them all using Letterboxd. As a way to motivate myself to read more, I thought I would do the same for what books I have been reading, using Goodreads as a way to set myself a reading challenge.

So, this year I set myself a challenge of reading 15 books. Here’s how my 2015 challenge went, with a short review and rating for each of the books:

Book v Film: Gone Girl

“The question I’ve asked more often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I supposed 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?”

Based on Gillian Flynn‘s 2012 New York Times Best Seller, with the adaptation directed by David Fincher, Gone Girl is premised around the seemingly happy married couple Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike). Introduced to the readers as your average husband and wife, Nick and Amy are a couple that you quickly warm to. But when Amy mysteriously disappears, the truth of their marriage slowly unravels. Realising that everything wasn’t as perfect as it seemed, the spotlight of Amy’s disappearance soon turns on to Nick, as he becomes the focus of an intense media circus. But is Nick a man capable of killing his wife? Was their marriage really that bad? Or is the truth far from the whole story?

Film Review: Gone Girl

Based on Gillian Flynn‘s 2012 New York Times Best Seller, with the adaptation directed by David Fincher, Gone Girl is premised around the seemingly happy married couple Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike). Introduced to the readers as your average husband and wife, Nick and Amy are a couple that you quickly warm to. But when Amy mysteriously disappears, the truth of their marriage slowly unravels. Realising that everything wasn’t as perfect as it seemed, the spotlight of Amy’s disappearance soon turns on to Nick, as he becomes the focus of an intense media circus. But is Nick a man capable of killing his wife? Was their marriage really that bad? Or is the truth far from the whole story?

You Should Be Reading: Gone Girl

“The question I’ve asked more often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I supposed these questions storm cloud 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?”

It may have been all about the young adult dystopias over the past few months, but if you want to get yourself into something different then you should be reading Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.

Published in 2012, Gone Girl is a New York Times Best Seller premised around the seemingly happy married couple, Nick and Amy Dunne. Introduced to the readers as your average husband and wife, Nick and Amy are a couple that you quickly warm to. But when Amy mysteriously disappears, the truth of their marriage slowly unravels. Realising that everything wasn’t as perfect as it seemed, the spotlight of Amy’s disappearance soon turns on to Nick, as he becomes the focus of an intense media circus. But is Nick a man capable of killing his wife? Was their marriage really that bad? Or is the truth far from the whole story?

Set to be directed by David Fincher and starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike the lead roles, the film adaptation is set to be released on 2nd October.

Book Review: Gone Girl

“The question I’ve asked more often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions storm cloud 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?”

Written by Gillian Flynn and published in 2012, Gone Girl is a New York Times Best Seller that centres on the seemingly happy married couple, Nick and Amy Dunne. But when Amy mysteriously disappears, the truth of their marriage slowly unravels. Realising that everything wasn’t as perfect as it seemed, the spotlight of Amy’s disappearance soon turns on to Nick, as he becomes the focus of an intense media circus. But is Nick a man capable of killing his wife? Was their marriage really that bad? Or is the truth far from the whole story?