Gone Girl

This book exploded into the bestsellers chart earlier this year and already movie rights have been bought up by Reese Witherspoon's film company, whilst every newspaper for a while had pictures of celebrities with a copy of this book tucked under their arms.

When a book receives such endorsements it's almost unbearable not to check out whether the hype is deserved.

This is the story of Nick & Amy, a young married city couple who have moved back to Nick's small hometown in order to help care for his ill mother. One day however Amy disappears and suddenly every aspect of their marriage is under the microscope. The problem is though that Nick's view of his marriage seems to be out of synch with what the police are finding out about Amy. Suddenly Nick is suspect number 1.

I loved first half of this book, the way the chapters flit between Amy & Nick, exploring their marriage from two view points and this was intriguing. It built the suspense and a picture which promised a strong book. About half way through though it flipped on it's head and went a little crazy. I won't go into any specifics because it would ruin for those who haven't read it yet but suffice to say it made the ending less than I was expecting.

Personally I didn't find the ending credible, it left me frustrated and the character unresolved. I can see why this might translate well to the screen and I'm positive it will receive lots of attention on release. For me it wasn't the greatest book ever but it did introduce me to the author and I'd now (based on part of Gone Girl) give the other books from her a try.

To get it out of the way: this book is not for people who think that books should only feature likeable people. (This review is not for people who think that books should only feature likeable people; this reviewer is not for people who think that books should only feature likeable people.) But if you're like me and you like unlikeable people in your books, you'll like this book.

I was thrilled by the first part of this book: unreliable narration is one of my favorite literary techniques; unreliable narration being used to make the narrators look good is even more fun and a pair of unreliable narrators each distorting the narration in their favor was compelling reading that went beyond the normal tenets of mystery novels to speak to the distance between who we are and who we want to be. In this first part, both Nick and Amy, taking turns narrating are both completely unlikeable and completely relatable. One of the parts that sticks out from here: Amy complaining that she's mad at Nick but she doesn't want to be mad so she ends up even madder because she's mad that now he made her mad. Chilling: clearly terribly emotionally manipulative, but at the same time I think most people can relate to that feeling where you had planned on handling a difficult situation calmly and maturely and it doesn't end up that way and the spiral that ensues. I like that by the end of part one, it was really clear to me that my two major suspects in Amy's disappearance were the narrators and one of them knew something that they weren't telling. It was clever and novel.

The second and third parts of the book are just less interesting. The narration stops being unreliable (except for maybe Amy's relationship with Desi -- I was definitely skeptical of her depiction) and I found the solution to the mystery less interesting: sociopaths are the stuff of fiction but for a novel that is trying to be gritty and show compellingly, realistically flawed characters, true absolutely-no-empathy-do-whatever's-in-my-best-interest sociopathy really has no place (I decided not to spoiler tag this: I don't think it actually gives anything away.) I wanted the culprit in Amy's disappearance to be, like the first part of the book, a flawed but ultimately relatable person.

Overall, I'm glad I read it; it probably deserves the hype for trying some very cool and original ideas in terms of narration, and I'll be interested in reading Flynn's other work.

I haven't been as engaged with a thriller book like this in a long while. I was listening to this via audiobook as I drove for half a day to go on vacation, and then when I arrived I kept sneaking in time to listen to more because I wanted to see what would happen next. The format of bouncing between the husband's perspective and missing wife's journals probably isn't really a new idea, but works well here to build tension and keep the reader guessing. These characters are really interestingly drawn as well, early on I thought some of the writing was a bit pretentious or eye-rolly, but quickly realized that was intentional characterization.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but unfortunately I kind of suspected some plot points just based on little comments or whatever that I have read about the movie unintentionally, I wish I had zero knowledge going into this, but it was still fun to second guess myself a bit and try to figure out how things would get to where I thought they were going.

I absolutely loved this book! The plot makes it impossible to put down. I had seen the movie a few years ago and I remembered the general ending, but no details. This didn't spoil the book for me at all, the story is woven with such detail you cannot stop reading even if you have guessed what is going to happen next. I enjoyed how richly the main characters were painted, how deep were their emotional portraits.

I can highly recommend the audiobook, narrated by Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne.

Rating: 2.5/5
Rounded down to 2 stars

Summary: On his 5-year anniversary, Nick realizes that his wife is missing and is thrown into a strange plot that seems to implicate him. It is revealed that his wife, Amy, discovered Nick's dalliance with a younger woman and plots a maniacal plan to run away and ruin Nick's life forever

I quite enjoyed part one, where the mystery of where the wife was kept the plot tense and interesting. Once part two started, I did not care anymore about things. I didn't care enough and I really did not like the characters. I really disliked the ending as well. I don't quite get the hype of this book. I felt like the book should have been shorter, but it just kept going and going.