Gone Girl with slightly nicer people... 
 but it's Gone Girl only at its most elemental. it's the story of the marriage of two beautiful people; a marriage whose sparkling perfection and longevity is the envy of all. but no one knows what happens in a marriage behind closed doors. sometimes, not even its participants. 
 this is the story of the moving parts that keep a marriage going; the sacrifices and the machinations under the smooth facade. it's about how much work it takes to make it look effortless. it's about secrets. 
 and that's basically Gone Girl, right? the fact that a relationship is work, and if you let yourself slip into complacency, bad things can happen. it's nowhere near as misanthropic as Gone Girl, but strip away the sociopathy of dear amy, and you have a pretty compelling cautionary tale. 
 instead of amy we have mathilde - an enigmatic woman who captivates the charismatic lotto with her beauty and holds him with The dark whip at the center of her. How, so gently, she flicked it and kept him spinning. tall, privileged lady's man lotto proposes to mathilde upon their first meeting and loves her all his life. later, we will get her side of this first meeting and the calculation and misunderstanding at its center. it's a love story about two people who saw each other clearly enough to sustain twenty-four years of marriage, and what they didn't know couldn't hurt them. right? 
 it's hard not to say too much - lots of pressure being the very first review on here. all i knew going into it was that there were two parts, and the second part marks a huge shift in perspective that changes everything. it's not quite as simple as his-and-her narratives; the entire book is told in third-person perspectives, including parenthetical interjections from omniscient, possibly divine, commentators. but it's like a gigantic advent calendar of a book, where the more you read, the more is revealed, and the story is given more weight. 
 it's lauren groff, so there's a bit of magic to it, but only just subtle hints. and it's lauren groff, so there is exquisite writing: His wife carried their picnic basket to the edge of the lake under a willow so old it no longer wept, just sort of bore its fate with thickened equanimity. 
 it's lauren groff, so i loved it.