My Cup of Tea

Buddy Read with the ladiest ladies: Andrea, Lau and Liz*

Actual rating 2½ stars

In the most Amy style…

You’re reading this review because:
A) It just popped up in your feed and you said “What the hell, I’ll read it!”
B) You’re meaning to read this book but you’re not quite sure.
C) You’re almost half way through this book and you’re not feeling it.

If your answer is C, let me tell you that you should keep going. That’s exactly what happened to me! The first part of the book, the one that is supposed to be thrilling and all mystery was quite meh.

Amy Dunne went missing the morning of her fifth anniversary, leaving clear evidence of struggle. Husband Nick will narrate step by step the police investigation and we will soon discover that he’s a big fan of the lie of omission. Amy, in the other hand, will feed us information about their relationship through diary entries, from the day they met towards the very day of her disappearance.

First person narrative (little annoying at first, like how many times can you say “my stomach went oily”) adds to the general feeling of “Was this a thriller?” Sure… there is a crime, there are suspects, and there is an investigation and lots of pieces of evidence being found. And yet it was a little bit boring. A perfect couple with first world problems. Until the 50% mark, when everything recovers a new meaning, and you realized that the way the author structured the book is, actually, quite clever. The plot twist per se is not entirely unpredictable, but it clearly marks a before and after.

From that point on, all the little mysteries will become certainties (sometimes explained in a little too obvious way), and the book turns into something entirely different. A critic towards media manipulating information, human relationships, psychological instability, irresponsible parenting... You name it!

Frankly, every single character is detestable. Each one of them is crazy, mentally sick in all seriousness. And this author, Miss Gillian Flynn, manipulates your mind, making you feel things about this despicable beings that you didn’t think you were capable of, which is really interesting! Dumb bitch.

Sadly, this characters are far from flawless in many ways. There are a couple of inconsistencies when it comes to their personalities. Example: Amy easily goes from utterly brilliant while plotting, to really dumb when she gets rob while on the run or abducted by Desi, to (again) absolutely clever when she gets back home. Same goes for the plot. Nick never realized that it was Amy setting him up, even when he’s asked about the google search “body floats Mississippi” that he never did, or the mysterious panties that belong to no one.

And the ending… completely wicked, but anticlimactic and a very sad ending. What was the author even trying to tell us with that? It seems fitting in some ways, but it doesn’t make any sense to me.

So in my personal opinion, every thought provoking aspect, and the only reason why I would think of recommending this book to anyone, is raised in the second half of the book. Not a good thriller, but it gave me a good idea of Flynn’s bizarre, dark mind. I’m in for another one of her books.