Gone Girl

I started reading this book after seeing Lea Michele was yet another celeb to be reading it, and ohhh myyy it's been a thrill! It's trippy in the loveliest way; it keeps you guessing! It's filled with the sweetness of first marriage and growing as a couple. It's also twisted and dark and captivating. 

The book starts with so many cute little moments about the start of their love story, and the way Nick and Amy began their marriage. The mood of the book is such (and this is what I kept telling people about the book) that you literally have no idea who to trust and what is actually happening. I loved that!

And then you start getting both perspectives, and just when you think you're figuring it all out, the chapter ends with another jaw-dropping moment that changes everything! I think it's best if you don't read up on the plot, it's such a fun adventure watching it fall out in front of you.

The second part of the book is all sociopath-paranoia-plotting, it's magnificent and terrifying! I spent most of this last part, panicked about what I would do if I was in Nick's situation, and hoping with everything in me that someone is on his side. I was of course, completed entranced by Amy's every thought and wondering what her every move would be. 

Up until the very end of the book, you have no idea how things are going to play out. It's complicated and beautiful and fascinating and overflowing with human realities: of society and prejudice and manipulation and personality weakness.

Reading this book was like watching a couple balancing on a tightrope, at a big show with a million distractions. It's only really about their dynamic, but they have somehow involved all these other people's opinions and desires and.. It's messy and they fight dirty, but it's all so controlled, so planned. You'll know what I mean when you read it! (Read it!) 

and just like I said at the end of Follow Me Down, if you've read it I would love to discuss the ending. 

Golden

This is a lovely book! A wonderful weekend read!

'Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.'

It's filled with beautiful imagery, so much emotion, fills your heart with the winds of change and challenges to really live. I especially loved the journal aspect, and the beautiful way it's written. Every chapter starts with a floral illustration, and a line from a poem or a poignant quote. I really liked that. 

The first line I highlighted in the book is this: "Today the wind and I burst through the double doors together, and it carries me like someone who's going places, because now it's official. I am." and the book kind of carries you on a journey with this feeling. It's a book about really living, and enjoying the experiences while you chase your goals. "A life made of beauty and love and chance." It asks the question, "What will you live for? Be passionate about? Define yourself by?" while you read Parker's story, as she reads Julianna's story and tries to live them both out as best she can. 

Julianna writes so beautifully of a boy who 'feels like someone I've always known, but also someone I need to know more' and it changes the way she sees her life and her relationship and, the course of her life in it's entirety. 

I believe that every moment matters and happens for a reason, that you see things in conversations or the corner of your eyes and that one day it all matches up to have a magnificent meaning. And I enjoyed that aspect, but I also enjoyed the way *not really a spoiler* it ends with possibility, no defined answer or 'happily ever after' - though to me, that's the real kind of happily ever after.

I think this would make a great movie adaption, or even tv series. And I'd kind of like a second book, maybe written the way Lola and the Boy Next Door is.. where you see them again but in a different story. Maybe from someone like Orion's perspective, or Hope's thoughts. 

There's a boy who has like Parker for years, Be a miracle. Be alive, and living a beautiful life somewhere new, however impossible it seems.