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Book Review of The Dinner

The Dinner
Chocoholic avatar reviewed on + 291 more book reviews


I keep reading reviews of this book which compare it to Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl," which really irks me. That book is about a husband and wife's divorce and things not always being what they seem. There is zero resemblance between Gone Girl and The Dinner, in my mind. If one must compare it to another written work, how about Anna Karenina for the obvious and multiple references?

Okay, off my soapbox.

This is an interesting concept for a story, of two couples sitting down for a meal together to talk about their teenaged sons problems. The couples are related: the two husbands are brothers. One is a prominent politician, the other a man with an interesting mental illness who is the protagonist of the story. The story does jump around in time quite a bit as there is some backstory and characters to develop. The overarching question of the book is how far would you go for your child.

The story had my interest from the get-go, but the first 100-120 pages do tend to get bogged down and for that reason I almost put this book down. In the end, I'm glad I stuck with it as some pivotal events occur about mid-book that suddenly ramped up the tension in the story and made it very hard to put down. Definitely worth a read!