When A Book Gets In Your Head

Have you ever read a book that you cannot stop thinking about? The kind of book that you find your mind drifting back to when in conversation with others, when you’re day-dreaming and as your falling asleep. There have only been a few books that have really done this to me (Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin is one of them) and, most recently, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. This isn’t a new book, our Hayley reviewed the book back in 2012 when it came out, but I only recently read it.

My best friend read it, asked me if I had and told me I just had to. I had been intrigued but never got around to it. When it came to her birthday and she wanted to see the film adaptation in gold class, I borrowed her copy.

I picked it up on Friday night, started reading Saturday morning and finished Sunday afternoon. I went out for several hours on both days and didn’t stay up ridiculously late. I’m not a slow reader but I’m not a ridiculously fast reader either. I only read quickly when a book captivates me and that’s the best way to describe Gone Girl. I couldn’t put it down because I just wanted to know what happened. Every time I thought I had figured it out, BAM, something else would happen that blew all my theories out of the water.

At work on the Monday I asked every single person in my department if they had read the book and told them they had to just because I wanted to talk to someone about it. The book was so far in my head, it was all I could think about and gave me some serious writer envy because I would love to write a book that good.

I have seen the movie twice. Once with a group of my friends and a week later I dragged DG along just so he knew why I couldn’t stop talking about it. Both times I was blown away by the brilliant writing, directing and acting. Say what you want about Ben Affleck, the guy was amazing and I don’t think I’ll ever look at Rosamund Pike the same way again. It was one of the greatest book to movie adaptions I’ve seen (it helps that the author also wrote the screenplay). I’ve seen articles that have described the movie as boring if you’ve read the book because there is nothing new, but isn’t that what you want? They left some small bits out but for the most part, it played out on the screen the way it had in the book. While it was a long movie, going for two and a half hours, I was not bored at any point.

I have been able to convince some people at work to read the book and many more have seen the movie (though obviously just not on my recommendation, everyone is raving about it). Everyone has come into work talking about it and saying how insane the movie and the concept is. After seeing it with DG and getting home at 10:30pm, he stayed up till 2am thinking about it. I still haven’t stopped thinking about it.

It’s one of the things I love about the written word, the ability it has to get inside your head. It can make you think about things you ordinarily wouldn’t. For me, Gone Girl brings up the question of if you ever really truly know anyone. I love the way it explores the psyche of different people. Books like Gone Girl are one of the reasons I want to be a writer.

Have you read/seen Gone Girl? What did you think? What was the last book that got inside your head?