Shit. Pretty much complete shit.

If you enjoy sexist bullcrap with an emphasis on over-bearing and aggressive romance coupled with a meandering, tissue-paper thin plot and populated with wisps of smoke on the breeze in place of supporting characters overseen by an unsettling puppet-master third-side of a hideous and oppressive triangle of love then by all means - be my guest and get ready to fall in love with Splintered by AG Howard. If, however, you are not a fan of fiction-for-the-insane and would prefer not to read a shoddy rehashing of Tim Burton's 2010 movie Alice mashed up with American McGee's awesome video game of the same name then this is really not the book for you.

Alyssa's family has a history of insanity, beginning it seems with Alyssa's great-great-great grandmother who was the inspiration behind Lewis Caroll's classic story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. With Alyssa's mother incarcerated in the most ridiculous asylum I have ever had the misfortune of reading about (if a nurse were to casually wander around with an unprescribed and loaded syringe of some unspecified sedative just chilling in her pocket, believe me she'd me struck off sharpish) Alyssa dives back down the rabbit hole to Wonderland to right the wrongs of the past and break the curse of madness her family appears to be struck with.

I have spent all week cleaning up vomit. Most of it canine. Some, I'd hazard to guess, feline. Sadly this is just the way the cookie crumbles when your pets get into the garbage. All there is left to do is shrug and grab the mop. Again. This is really not my favourite pet-care chore. In fact, it's my least favourite. It turns my stomach. As a nurse, there's not a lot of bodily fluids that have this effect on me. I'd like to think I've mostly suppressed my disgust reflex. But vomit? No. Never. However, I would gladly wipe up puke off the floor all day long than ever subject myself to Adorkable by Sarra Manning again. Ever. This book caused me pain.

That old familiar jaw-ache reared it's ugly head when I was first introduced to our delightful main character and co-narrator, Jeane Smith. Jeane is super cool and totes amazeballs at life. That is, if your definition of cool is being completely vile to anyone who wanders into your vicinity, purposely dressing as if you are colour blind or insane or just really lazy with your laundry and cultivating a deep seated, frightening superiority complex.

Jeane's a self sufficient, 17 year old living in London and running her online empire - Adorkable: the brand, from her living room. She has all the usual "boy trouble", school shit and in the end discovers that it's okay to be different. That's pretty much it. This book is very poorly plotted. There's way too much of Jeane sounding off, Jeane being cruel and abrasive and Jeane verbally and mentally abusing her peers, to fit much actual story line in there. There are a lot of threads begun and then just left loose to flap. Like Jeane's uncomfortable situation with her family which she mentions a few times but makes no move to resolve, or her awkward relationship with her ex-boyfriend who she swears she's still best buds with but never calls, never thinks about and never really sees again. But she does find the time to squeeze in a "relationship" with the most totes amazeballs guy in school, Michael (our second co-narrator) who also happens to be just about the most boring guy ever to breathe. He's wheeled along behind her, cowering from the blindingly, brilliant light of her sheer awesomeness as they half heartedly toss a few bland jokes and insults back and forth. It really is pitiful. The worst of it is that Michael isn't only dull and pathetic. He's also an arrogant self absorbed dick:

I have this friend who I can't stand. I'm using the term friend rather loosely here, I think recently we have spiralled downward into somewhat frosty acquaintances. She's violently pretentious. She has this thing about champagne. She knows all about the vintages and what vineyard the grapes were grown and the names of the crows that perched on the goddam vines while they were growing and all that other boring shit that she trots out at dinner parties, for some reason thinking people will be impressed. I'll tell you a secret - I "accidentally" stole one of these vomit inducingly expensive bottles of champagne recently. And I drank it. And it wasn't all that. Tasted exactly the same as every other bottle of champagne I've ever drank from. But oh no - this friend would insist she could detect notes of oak, or a hint of apple or whatever other bullshit she dreamt up. I mean she has a wine cellar for fucks sake. Not in her house. No. She has a rented wine cellar. Because let me tell you something. It's all a facade. It's all smoke and mirrors. Oh sure, at every dinner party, event and function we attend she's wearing her Louboutins, she's sipping her freaking champagne and she proclaiming loudly about her trip to Portugal or Greece or somewhere (yeah, I don't really listen that hard .....) to find a marriage location (her actual words. Whatevs girl .....) but I know it's all fake. I've been to her crummy apartment. I've sat on her frayed and faded red couch which reeks of cat pee. I've seen her so poor she's sitting on her bedroom floor crying, sorting through her clothes, picking out things to sell on eBay. I've seen her desperately trying to make something to eat out of a packet of mushrooms, a block of mouldy cheese and some questionable smelling chicken because she's spent all her money on fucking champagne.

This is my exact problem with her. She's so dishonest. I don't have a problem with someone having money and enjoying flashing it around a little, talking the talk at some party. But don't do this unless you actually have money. And don't forgo petrol that week to find the money, forcing you to get up at 4am to allow you the time for the two and half hour walk to work. This is a true story. There are a lot of people this crazy chick has fooled but I'm not one of them. I've known her for too long. I've shared an apartment with her. I've seen her sticky taping her bath taps back together because she can't afford to hire a plumber. That's a pretty dark time for anyone to live through. But instead of accepting that everyone goes through these things, and working hard to make life a bit more bearable, she's attempting to skip that and fake success instead, scrimping where no-one has any business scrimping (like tea bags. I'm really not happy reusing tea bags.) and splashing out on "props" for her trendy, lavish lifestyle. Yeah - her imaginary trendy, lavish lifestyle. I've tried an intervention with her. I was genuinely concerned about her spending habits and her sustainability. But she's not interested. So long as people flutter to her at social events, wowing over whatever bottle she brought for the evening I guess she feels like she's winning. But she bugs the crap outta me. I know it's petty to still care, it's not my problem. But I can't help but care when we were once close.

I'm digressing. What I'm trying to say is that reading Gone Girl was rather like spending an evening with this friend - boring, uncomfortable and with the knowledge that you just know you're being lied to constantly.

The basic plot is pretty straight forward: Amy disappears. Whodunit? I can't really say much more without spoiling the whole thing.