The Dinner

Everyone is comparing this book to [b:Gone Girl 21480930 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1406511734s/21480930.jpg 13306276], so I feel like I need to read Gone Girl now, even though it's not something I would normally pick up.This book is also being compared to [b:The God of Carnage 3070605 The God of Carnage Yasmina Reza https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347752275s/3070605.jpg 3101619] (I've only seen the movie) which is pretty apt, in that it's the story of two couples coming together to talk about their kids, and it gets increasingly tense/weird. I wouldn't call The Dinner a farce, though. It also reminded me of [b:We Need to Talk About Kevin 80660 We Need to Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327865017s/80660.jpg 3106720] (again I've only seen the movie - but it's on my to-read list!).I hate all of the characters. Not one of them is sympathetic in any way except maybe Babette. I love the unreliable narrator. I was definitely on Paul's side at the beginning, and I loved how much I started to hate him as I learned more about him. He's kind of a Walter White that way.This book probably needs some suspension of disbelief, and I didn't necessarily like that Paul gave no details about his life - for example, what his mysterious mental illness was. To me, it seemed obvious that Paul is a psychopath, or else has a personality disorder like borderline, which can be treated with medication. Though, personality disorders can't be detected in utero, so I just pretended that in the universe of the book, they can be. Which was an easy suspension of belief for me, but may not be for others.it seemed like a mostly unnecessary tool.Other than those little things, this book was creepy and disturbing and I love that.