Reading: Shutter Island

I probably shouldn't have read Shutter Island. I haven't seen the movie (heard it wasn't great), but from the previews I figured out what the big twist was.

Knowing the twist really made reading the book anti-climatic. I had hoped that the book would be so compelling and so interesting on its own that it wouldn't matter that I knew what was really going on. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.  The book wasn't bad, but since I knew where it was all headed, the "clues" and foreshadowing seemed too obvious. And I really hate it when that happens.

Summer, 1954.
U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Along with his partner, Chuck Aule, he sets out to find an escaped patient. But nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems. And neither is Teddy Daniels.

Is he there to find a missing patient? Or has he been sent to look into rumors of Ashecliffe's radical approach to psychiatry? An approach that may include drug experimentation, hideous surgical trials, and lethal countermoves in the shadow war against Soviet brainwashing ...

The closer Teddy and Chuck get to the truth, the more elusive it becomes, and the more they begin to believe that they may never leave Shutter Island.
Because someone is trying to drive them insane ... --Goodreads

The worst part is that I didn't even think the twist was that original. (When The Hubs saw the movie he figured it out in the first 5 minutes). I really felt like the book was written so that it could be turned into a movie. It's one thing when a book is written and it just happens to be picked up by Hollywood, but it's another when the author writes the book with the movie in mind from the get-go. Something about it just doesn't ring true.





*****SPOILER*****
HIGHLIGHT THE WHITE TEXT BELOW IF YOU WANT TO READ
*****SPOILER*****

I'm going to reveal the big twist here. Are you sure you want to know what it is? I'm serious, it really does ruin the book if you know it in advance.

Ok, here goes.

He's a patient in the asylum!

Dun Dun Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnn

The book is also pretty graphic at times, and has some language that I thought was completely unnecessary. I think I've said before that bad language doesn't offend me, but gratuitous use of certain slurs does. If it doesn't further the plot, don't do it. It's a false method of making the book "gritty" and it makes me think the author is a jerk.

On the upside though, since I knew Leonardo DiCaprio played the main character in the movie, I kept picturing him while I read the book. That's not a bad image to have!

Want to see what I'm reading next? Check me out on Goodreads.