Advent 2025 Book 2 – Suspense, secrets and twists

Book 2 of my Advent Calendar is a book I have read, I remember borrowing it from a colleague at work a few years back. It’s Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. The copy I have been sent is in excellent condition but I won’t be reading it again.

Gone Girl was a very popular suspense novel when first published and I understand that there has been a film, which I haven’t seen. It’s one of those novels which was discussed and enjoyed by people who aren’t always avid readers and there were articles about it across the media. I obviously wanted to read a book that was so generally popular so that I could make up my own mind about it and after I had read it I decided that I didn’t like it.

This is a clever book which is well plotted and which has some excellent twists in the story. The issue, for me, is that none of the characters is very likeable, and they don’t improve at all when you learn more about them. I realise that you don’t have to like the characters to enjoy a book but I prefer to identify with them, wherever possible, and I accept that that means that I will never like some stories.

The book is off to my friendly Oxfam Bookshop at Holmfirth to find a new owner. I had expected that there would be some books in the Calendar that I have read before so I am not upset at all about this, unless there are lots more in the packages on my shelves. The fact that I have already read today’s choice shows that the curator of the Calendar understands what sort of books I might like to try, which augers well for the next few days.

My little, additional present with today’s book was a set of sticky tabs which you can use to mark your place in a book. I use these a lot in notebooks so that I can easily find my place so these will be very useful, I especially like that they are in subtle shades of blue and grey.