Reading can be addictive

By Curt Swarm

Gillian Flynn, that?s all you need to know. I heard her being interviewed on NPR, the source of many books I read, and gave her a shot. I wasn?t disappointed. Flynn is the author of three barn burners: ?Gone Girl,? ?Dark Places? and ?Sharp Objects.? Talk about books that you can?t put down! My goodness. And they?re pretty well written. Flynn has been on the New York Times best seller list for eons.

You can get all three of her best sellers in one set, called ?The Complete Gillian Flynn,? or purchase them singly. Being lazy and not wanting to troop out to the bookstore, or library, I dialed up the complete set on my Kindle. Presto-chango! They fell into my lap like candy. Real books feel and smell good, but these electronic readers have their place. Don?t plan on doing much of anything until you have these three books read, which doesn?t take long, even for me, and I?m a slow reader. Warning! Gillian Flynn?s books are extremely addictive and may be habit forming.

?Gone Girl,? as I?m sure you?re aware, has been made into a blockbuster movie starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. I haven?t seen the movie, but it?s had rave reviews and, according to most, does the book justice. Which can be hard to accomplish. Flynn is a master at characterization. Each character she introduces to the reader comes alive and, for me, without fail, reminded me of someone I know.

?Sharp Objects?....This book gives a great insight into the mental makeup of ?cutters.?

?Dark Places.? The saga of Ben and Libby Day. Reminds me a lot of some of Iowa?s more famous family-murder crimes.

I usually don?t get into suspense/drama, but a common subject matter of all three books, sociopathic women, drew me in like a fly to molasses. And I was stuck.

Flynn employs some rather cheap tricks to keep the reader reading, like ending a chapter right in the middle of a tense scene, switching to a flashback, then continuing the tense scene in the following chapter. I just skipped the flashback, went to the following chapter, then came back to the flashback. I forgave her for this writing ploy because Flynn?s prose is right up there with some of the best.

?There?s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.? ?He should cough out yellow Tweety Bird feathers, the way he smiles at me.? ?His shirt wasn?t wrinkled, but he wore it like it was.? It?s her prose that I admire and separates Flynn from your common, ordinary, whodunnit writers. She?s also quite adept at writing from the male, female or adolescent point of view, which, ask any writer, takes mega-talent.

Keep a dictionary handy. Or, if you?re using a Kindle, voila, move the cursor to the word, and the internal dictionary coughs up the definition. Sweet. Flynn?s writing, for me, was a vocabulary lesson?another sign of brains and talent.

So, let the snow fly, and the wind howl. If Flynn?s intriguing, highly-entertaining story telling doesn?t get you sizzling, there?s always the hot tub, or a workout at the gym. Hmm, work out the mind, or work out the body? Do both. There?s a book holder on that exercise machine.

Keep on reading.

Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526, email him at curtswarm@yahoo.com, or visit his website at www.empty-nest-words-photos-and-frames.com. Curt also reads his columns at www.lostlakeradio.com.