Great review! I liked this one a lot more than you and E did (I rated it a 4), but many of my friends had much the same reaction you guys had. It was so interesting to view the extremes, with some loving it and some absolutely loathing it. About the end:
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler: that was the one real problem I had with this book. The ending was very anticlimatic. It felt like the story was leading to this dramatic ending and then...nothing happens. On the one hand it's kind of fitting because they are both caught in their own hell forever (which they both deserve and of their own making), but on the other hand I think there needed to be something more. To be honest, I was hoping these two would end up killing each other. I thought that type of ending would have been more fitting.
Rachel, I too was hoping there was going to be the epic fight where they killed each other. But I don't think they were both in hell. I think Amy got exactly what she wanted, and that bothered the shit out of me. She got her hubby back, is going to have a child, scores a book deal, and everyone thinks she's the victim.
I interpreted the ending a bit differently in that yes, Amy definitely got what she wanted. She won for sure. But, that's not enough because for Amy nothing is ever enough. She will never be satisfied. At the very end of the book, she says something like, we're finally on our way to being happy, and then when she asks Nick why he's so good to her and his response is because he feels sorry for her, she thinks: "I really, truly wish he hadn't said that. I keep thinking about it. I can't stop." To me this in a way is or will be Amy's ultimate downfall. It's like a cancer that eats away at her. She needs more and more and more. On top of that, these two will forever be prisoners, trapped together in this sick and twisted relationship because each cannot live without the other. So that's why I said they are trapped in a hell of their own making. So I kind of saw it as poetic justice.
lol...great review. I have yet to read one where someone like Nick or Amy or both. I know I didnt like them either, I think that is what she was going for???
Damn, our reviews are quite similar LOL! We even gave it the same number of stars, but mine was a little more curse-laden. This book thoroughly pissed me off.
I liked the book precisely because I hated the main characters and everything that happened so freaking much. I admired how much the author made me loathe them to the point I wanted them both to die. Painfully.
I also applauded the author because she presented the characters so well, that that ending (miserable, desolated and plainly psicophatic) was the only possible one for those nut jobs, especially because I'm not in the story. Otherwise, you'd have a nice final chapter where this random girl enters their house with a chainsaw :)
Excellent review, I agree with all points. I am a big fan of Flynn and I like that she loves to present you main characters who are pretty bad people. Sometimes just hopelessly lost and turned in on themselves, but damaged all the same. But this was just, blah. I couldn't be surprised by any of it because both of them were awful people, who did awful things to each other. Frankly, they both deserved exactly what they got.
As I said, reading zombie. LOL. There came a point where I was just like well...I kind of just wish they'd spontaneously combust and be done with it. Poor future Dunne child :(.
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler: that was the one real problem I had with this book. The ending was very anticlimatic. It felt like the story was leading to this dramatic ending and then...nothing happens. On the one hand it's kind of fitting because they are both caught in their own hell forever (which they both deserve and of their own making), but on the other hand I think there needed to be something more. To be honest, I was hoping these two would end up killing each other. I thought that type of ending would have been more fitting.
I also applauded the author because she presented the characters so well, that that ending (miserable, desolated and plainly psicophatic) was the only possible one for those nut jobs, especially because I'm not in the story. Otherwise, you'd have a nice final chapter where this random girl enters their house with a chainsaw :)