DC Public Library discussion

Sell us on your new favorite book -- the one your friends and family are sick of hearing about.

Apathy and Other Small Victories

So I'll start. I read this when I was 22 and thought it was the funniest thing I had ever read in my life. Then I forgot about it for five years. I just reread it recently and it is still the funniest thing I've ever read. EVER. But not for the faint of heart, as this humor has a mean edge to it.
If the following paragraph speaks to you or makes you giggle, you will love this short novel: "I was stealing saltshakers again. Ten, sometimes twelve a night, shoving them in my pockets, hiding them up my sleeves, smuggling them out of bars and diners and anywhere else I could find them. In the morning, wherever I woke up, I was always covered in salt. I was cured meat. I had become beef jerky. Even as a small, small child, I knew it would one day come to this."

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I just finished this book and wow, it was quite a read! It's been on the NYT bestsellers list for a few weeks now, and it is actually worth the hype.

The book opens on Nick and Amy's the fifth anniversary, with Nick as our narrator. After a celebratory breakfast of homemade crepes, Nick heads off to work and by the afternoon, Amy is gone. The chapters then alternate between Nick's perspective after the disappearance and Amy's diary, starting the first day she met Nick. Suspense builds as the police begin to suspect Nick is responsible and the reader doesn't know which narrator to believe, if either of them. This is a mystery that is far from formulaic. Each piece is put together exceptionally well and the characters of Nick and Amy are both relatable, and off-putting. The story of their relationship, as much as the story of her disappearance, kept me reading.