A brilliantly written and plotted mystery, a miasma of wretchedness and hate; a book that I devoured but deeply, utterly abhorred. I will try to do this as spoiler-free as possible.
Gone Girl is the alternating point-of-view, semi-epistolary novel that tells two stories about Nick and Amy. In the first story, Amy met Nick in and falls in love with him. They get married. It is blissful. Amy is attentive. She is supportive. She still loves the idea of her husband, though she knows things are falling apart.
Nick becomes abusive, hateful, hurtful. And then Amy disappears — just, gone without a trace. In his narrative, Amy is brilliant and beautiful, but also controlling, resentful, and hateful. Their marriage is a sham. Because everything we think we know about Amy and Nick?
Amy is not who we think she is, and Nick is…well, ok Nick is still douchetastically pathetic. In this second story, we learn more about this toxic couple from hell, and the pit of spite and grief that is their marriage. She creates two ok, three characters that are completely distinct, and she alternates these points of view with incredible deftness and ease, building a complex narrative — a complex crime — that is deeply disturbing but brilliantly executed.
The first part of the book makes you question what you know about these characters, their lives and their secrets. Everyone is unreliable, everything is questionable. This is all really fucking good. This, I did not like. I hated the way the story develops in the second part of the book, and I especially hated the way that it ends. I hated the pointlessness of the story — why does it need to be told?
What does it accomplish? What does it say about us, as people? He whines, he pretends, he is so full of incompetence and ennui and self-important horseshit. He wants to be a MAN and Amy — brilliant, beautiful, spoiled, vindictive, Amy — has stolen that from him. Which brings me to Amy. It turns out that Amy is not the eager to please doormat that she presents herself as in the first part of the book. No, she is an honest to goodness sociopath that has elaborately planned and framed her cheating pathetic loser of a husband for her death.
Are you fucking kidding me? THESE are the actions of the same methodical, patient mind that came up with this elaborate revenge scheme against her husband? And that is the end of Gone Girl. There are plenty of other problems, too, but Ana has covered them all, below. It opens on the day of their fifth anniversary, the day when Amy goes missing. Soon — as these things go — the investigators start to focus on the husband.
But is Nick guilty? Did he really kill his wife? If not, what happened to Amy? As such, her diaries entries are all faked concoctions. It becomes clear then that Amy is really, a psychopath. Gone Girl almost had me there for a while — I can vouch for how incredibly readable and engaging it is.
I could not put it down and I had to find out what was going to happen to these people. I also thought that structurally speaking — with the alternating unreliable narratives — the novel was competent. It was also a success in the way that it portrayed its two deeply unpleasant, unlikeable main characters. The reader is supposed to despise these people, and loathe them I certainly did although it made for a fucking unpleasant reading experience. But ok fine, this is a very personal reaction.
And if a reader is used to reading epistolary novels, unreliable narrators and thrillers, it is easy to know that a twist is coming. Considering all this, is the main twist even that surprising? That said, this is not my main point of contention with the novel. The recurring themes are what give me pause for thought. It is possible to argue that the one of the main themes of Gone Girl is its thoughtful examination of marriage difficulties; or to question how well two people can really know each other or allow the other to know you and, unfair expectations.
This means that the book only really works on its own microcosm of darkness. Another recurring theme throughout is the question of misogyny. Amy on the other hand, is presented as a kind of feminist with her astute observations about social gender constructs by constantly calling on the bullshit of unfair social expectations around her gender. So on a cursory glance one could argue that the book is feminist.
He is also the one who in the end, needs to contain the psycho bitch by staying with her and helping her bringing up their child. So then all of a sudden this passive-aggressive, liar, stunted, cheater is the HERO? The one main thread of the book, the one point that is laboriously written through the first two parts is how Amy is incredibly smart and brilliant.
She has to be, in order to manipulate, concoct and maintain all the plans she has over the course of her short life. But then get this, right? Nick concocts his own plan to make Amy change her mind and come back. And his plan consists of appearing live on TV and saying that he forgives her, that he understands who she really is and he loves her anyway.
Amy — psychopath, brilliant Amy — has a change of heart almost as immediately as she watches his interview. BUT the first half of the book was all about setting up and making sure we understood how much of a bullshit detector Amy actually had. So which one is it? Either she is a brilliant psychopath or a gullible idiot.
And I am going to nitpick too: Nick is in his early thirties buy he sounds fucking ancient. In summation: I devoured Gone Girl but I fucking hated it. Because for the time spent reading, this book entirely owned me. My focus, my world, my thoughts, were swept away by these insanely unrivaled characters and the darkness of their story. And the suspense of it all left me in a constant state of guessing — straight to its twisted end. Gone Girl is not a happy, feel-good love story with just a few bumps in an otherwise silky road.
This road is paved in despair and carries you on an intense journey of whodunit's, how's, and why's. The solemn tone is very often lightened with humor, slapping on a thick coat of irony along the way Yes, this IS all very sick, but the snarky narration has me laughing anyway. The characters are complex and being generous here barely likable, but I did feel tiny traces of empathy and sadness for them. However, this book isn't about falling in love with its characters, but simply gaining an addictive interest in their story - a haunting story that will confuse you, sadden you, sicken you, surprise you, and gravely entertain you in the process.
It's rich in suspense and tight in execution. No holes. No gaps. Nothing overlooked. Just when you think you've figured out where the plot is heading, you'll find yourself guessing again. Even the elements I had figured out were drastically more intense than I'd imagined. And I must gush over the writing because that's honestly what held me captive most: Witty, intelligent, insightful, descriptive, original.
Long sentences, with choppy thoughts, and it all fit perfectly. I felt the anxiety of this story. I lived it. So here's a very spoiler-free gist of the story After five years of what has now become a shaky marriage, Nick's wife goes missing leaving Nick the prime suspect in her sudden disappearance.
Nick is a man of little outward emotion who eats his pain as to not let others see his imperfections. He's a chameleon of a man who would sooner suffocate himself with lies before breathing a single truth that might condemn him.
But he soon finds himself condemned anyway, as the truths slowly begin to unravel. This story is told in dual perspectives that oscillate between past and present. I loved the structure; I loved the delivery, and I loved not knowing what was hiding around each corner. I realize there is some controversy over this story's ending, and while I won't reveal any details, I will say that I found it to be neither a disappointment nor a knock-your-socks-off grand finale.
Instead, I found it a rather fitting scenario that just made sense in relation to the overall tone of the story. If you're wondering why I thought the ending was so apt, here's my reasoning : Although only click if you've read the book.
I found the fact they remained together SO tragic that it was almost comical. In this case, a glorified ending of redemption just would have felt forced and too 'happy' for this bitter tale. People want their characters to obtain a proper justice Dual perspectives. You know those books that are a complete chore to read? The ones you'll do anything -- playing Words with Friends, cleaning the house, scrubbing toilets -- to avoid reading?
Then a few weeks go by and you've gotten dumber, because in doing your damnedest to avoid reading said book, menial tasks have turned your brain to mush? Gone Girl has gone to my "sucked" shelf. If I want to hear about bored, unhappily married people, I'll talk to my married friends or delve into something by a cap You know those books that are a complete chore to read? If I want to hear about bored, unhappily married people, I'll talk to my married friends or delve into something by a capable writer.
If I want horror and suspense, I'll drop all pretenses and hit up the master. I can't deal with a slow-moving plot about a neurotic suburban housewife and her justifiably distant husband. I can't deal with lines like "She blew more smoke toward me, a lazy game of cancer catch," or "When I think of my wife, I always think of her head It was what the Victorians would call a finely-shaped head. Then there's the issue with the character named Margo, or Go for short.
What a pain in the ass when sentences start with her name. It seems like a verb, then you go on to realize that it's the chick with the annoying name. I just couldn't take it any more. View all 55 comments. I've been completely fangirling over Gillian Flynn since her debut Sharp Objects six years ago. It remains one of my all-time-favorites, along with Flynn's sophomore novel Dark Places. No one writes the inner workings of warped and damaged human psychology better than this woman.
With complete conviction I place her in the same category alongside the likes of Flannery O'Connor and Shirley Jackson. Flynn has a devilish, uncanny flair for creating memorable characters and twisty plots that drive d I've been completely fangirling over Gillian Flynn since her debut Sharp Objects six years ago. Flynn has a devilish, uncanny flair for creating memorable characters and twisty plots that drive down unexpected roads shrouded in fog the end of which you cannot see until you're smack upon it.
So you can bet I've been anxiously awaiting this latest release with agonized, bated breath. Despite missing some of the texture and nuances of her first two books, this time out Flynn has offered up a bonafide page turner of the sordid, sensationalist kind that makes summer reading oh-so-sweet.
Trust me when I say, if you're only going to take one book to the beach or cottage this summer, it's gotta be Gone Girl. I'm also going to encourage you to avoid all reviews except this one, haha! Even more than her other novels, Gone Girl is so easy to spoil. Which is why I'm going to say very little about the actual inner workings of the story itself.
And if I feel the need to get even close to doing that, be rest assured it will be put behind a spoiler tag. A list of lovables: Narrative voice : What makes Gone Girl such a compulsive read is the alternating points of view. Dueling voices in any novel can result in epic fail , especially when the voices are so similar as to be indistinguishable. If you're going to tell the story from different points of view, you better make sure the points of view are actually I don't think I've ever seen alternating voices handled so effectively as they are here with husband Nick and wife Amy.
As you read, you begin to wonder if either of these narrators are in the least reliable , if you're perhaps not getting full disclosure after all. I absolutely adored that pernicious doubt and shifting sympathies.
It's like watching nature programs that can be shot to make you cheer for the wolf pack one week, and for the moose the week after. Is this manipulative? You bet it is! But trust me, being manipulated by a master like Flynn is sheer delight. Media as judge, jury and executioner : C'mon, we all know it don't we? Murder suspects of every sort and circumstance are tried first in the media and found guilty or innocent before the case ever makes it to trial.
Before an arrest is even made, pundits, "news" anchors and bloggers put forth his or her theories and "insights" decrying yay or nay.
You've seen Nancy Grace at work, haven't you? Flynn does a wonderful job here of dissecting our at times unhealthy, obsessive appetite for the sordid. How our voracious consumption of mass media provokes sympathy or outrage, how easily we are influenced to see a person as a saint or a devil. Innocent until proven guilty? Not so much these days. And good luck finding an impartial jury. Change of venue? With the meteoric rise of social media, you would have to go all the way to Mars in some instances in order to enlist "untainted" jurors.
The only thing humans do with more abandon and conviction than fall in love is fall out of love : Love is grand, marriage can be a beautiful, wonderful thing The rise and fall of any relationship carries within it the potential to be staggering in scope and severity. What we once adored about one another, we now loathe. What we lingered over and savored to the last sub-atomic particle, we now want to obliterate from our awareness, pull an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind if you please.
Oh yeah, I think we've all been there. More than anything, Flynn is putting gender relations and the perils of romance under a microscope, and her scrutiny doesn't miss a thing. It's tawdry, and titillating, and twisted, and didn't I already say the perfect effing read for this summer??? You bet. The only fly in the ointment here is that Flynn manages heaping amounts of sensational, but only moderate traces of substance. This novel's engine runs on the nitroglycerin of shocking twists and the suspension of disbelief.
Flynn largely ignores the gritty demands of realism here as they will only act as sugar in the gasoline, binding and stalling a story that has taken flight like a jet-fueled rocket bound for stratospheric heights. When you are strapped on to that rocket, you won't be worrying about realism though. Or subtleties. You'll be banging on the table like Harry's Sally screaming - yes!
Except in this case, you'll mean it. I didn't have to fake a single thing View all 28 comments. Ah, marriage. The story of Nick and Amy is a tale that is as old as time. A song as old as rhyme, etc. Then, of course, they enter into holy matrimony. But once that new car smell wears off?
Some rather interesting things happen. I think it's so nice when books show us that couples can work out their relationship problems in a healthy way. That ending. So tender. So sweet. This was a weird little story. Of course, Ah, marriage. Of course, I already knew the main spoiler going in, but it was still a fun audiobook and both narrators were great.
Because nothing says romance like putting the fear of God in your spouse, right? View all 73 comments. Aug 25, Glenn Russell added it Shelves: favorite-books. Hail to the Hogarth Shakespeare series, where the Bard's works are retold by a number of today's acclaimed novelists. Gillian Flynn is on the docket for Hamlet , my absolute favorite Shakespeare play.
In order to familiarize myself with Ms. Flynn's writing before I dive into her rendition of Hamlet , I had the pleasure of reading Gone Girl. Gone Girl is one o Hail to the Hogarth Shakespeare series, where the Bard's works are retold by a number of today's acclaimed novelists. Gone Girl is one of the most popular novels here on Goodreads nearly 2 million ratings; over , reviews and the film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike achieved blockbuster status. Although nearly everyone acknowledges Gone Girl is a page-turner, reviews have been mixed and extreme, judging the book as either very bad or very good.
Leading the list for Gone Girl as bad book we have unlikable, superficial characters, an unending sewer of psycho babble and parodies of the writing style there's even a parody book - Gone Bitch. Addressing one aspect of the negativity, Gillian Flynn said: "If you are someone who reads books to feel like you have a friend on the page, my book is not going to be the book for you. Flynn's dazzling breakthrough. It is wily, mercurial, subtly layered and populated by characters so well imagined that they're hard to part with.
Thriller of the year. An absolute must read. Although, I must admit, I am partial when novels are written with multiple narrators, or, what I refer to as rotating first person. Gillian Flynn's novel has two alternating narrators: husband Nick and wife Amy. I'm also fond of narrators who are unreliable and thus infuse the story with great suspense. Seen in this way, on a scale of ten, Gone Girl rates a ten. And that's just for starters.
Other aspects I especially enjoyed: 1 the sophisticated layering of character for both Amy and Nick, 2 penetrating insights on the current state of American class, culture and society, and 3 the ways in which the novel incorporates the pervasive influence of mass media.
Amy is exceedingly bright, degrees from both Harvard and Yale where she studied psychology. She was exploited as a child and adolescent, her mother and father made rich via publishing Amazing Amy books that tracked her growing up year by year. Family, friends and society in general expected Amy to be as perfect as her fictional twin.
Ironically, her soulmate, Nick, whom she married when she was 33, also has a twin, twin sister Margo. Hearing from his sister Margo that their mother is sick and needs help, he decides to move back with Amy. One of the more appealing parts of the story is watching Nick jolted into the need to transform. As we made our way through the piles of humans, an obese woman shushed up to us on an electric scooter. Her face was pimply and wet with sweat, her teeth catlike. The main story, of course, is Amy and Nick, but Gone Girl also makes a bold statement on the sorry condition of American economics and society.
Instantly, Nick and everyone else involved in the case, including the police, not only have a flesh-and-blood identity but also a public media identity — and, in many way, the media identity is of primary importance. Initially Nick comes off as an insensitive, unfeeling lout. When more facts in the case surface, the media portray him as a murderer who has been unfaithful to his wife.
Realizing he could face serious jail time and even the death sentence, Nick hires savvy Big Apple lawyer Tanner Bolt. So why not use it — control the story. She soon came across as a grieving woman desperate to believe the best of her son, and the more the hosts pitied her, the more she snapped and snarled, and the more unsympathetic she became.
She got written off quickly. Make that one guess — Amy. Brilliant, clever, beautiful, exceptionally well-spoken, forever camera ready and, oh so manipulative, by using the media Amy has finally outpaced fictional Amazing Amy in being truly amazing.
It is now and Amy and Nick are back living on the top floor of a spanking new Brooklyn condo overlooking the Manhattan skyline. Of course they are wealthy following the return of Amy's trust fund money and the successful launch of her book Amazing. And more good news: not only do they have a bright, lively little boy but also an even brighter little girl. Amy continues to write. As does Nick, who has published his first novel, a love story which is now on the best seller list.
Nick wasn't surprised - after all, he has a brilliant, amazing editor. Does this sound like the improbable combination of Lady Macbeth and a happily ever after fairy tale? You bet it does. Thank you, Gillian! It feels wonderfully symbolic. Isn't that what every marriage is, anyway? Just a lengthy game of he-said, she-said? Well, she is saying, and the world will listen, and Nick will have to smile and agree.
I will write him the way I want him to be: romantic and thoughtful and very very repentant - about the credit cards and the purchases and the woodshed. If I can't get him to say it out loud, he'll say it in my book. Certified Buyer , Ghaziabad. Certified Buyer , Mumbai. Certified Buyer , Vallachira. Certified Buyer , Ranchi. Certified Buyer , Indore. Certified Buyer , Kolkata. Explore Plus. Fiction Books.
Crime, Mystery and Thriller Books. Enter pincode. Usually delivered in 3 days? Flynn Gillian. Summary of the Book In Gone Girl , the reader will find that the narration alternates between Nick and Amy for the first half of the story. About Gillian Flynn Gillian Flynn is an author, screenwriter, comic book writer and former television critic. Frequently Bought Together. Gone Girl. Before I Go To Sleep. To Kill a Mockingbird. Add 3 Items to Cart. Rate Product.
I got a pirated copy of the book and was very disappointed with its quality. Delivery was prompt and with proper packaging. So was the return. Book Review - Engaging and anyone who is into thrillers would like this book. Just don't buy it from This seller! Neha Naik Certified Buyer , Bangalore. I started reading this book and got hooked to it, just could not stop. The book is divided in 3 sections called Books and the first one was extremely captivating. I just loved it. It starts with giving out both views - from the husband as it happens and the wife by way of diary entries.
But Flynn takes this sturdy trope of the hour news cycle and turns it inside out, providing a devastating portrait of a marriage and a timely, cautionary tale about an age in which everyone's dreams seem to be imploding.
Considering how compulsively I kept coming back for more, I am seriously thinking of going back to page one and doing it all again. Gone Girl is delicious and intoxicating and delightfully poisonous. The writing is jarringly good, and the story is, well Read the book and you'll discover—among many other treasures—just how much freight and fright that last adjective can bear. Gillian Flynn is a thrilling writer. This is one puzzle you do not want to miss.
Flynn Sharp Objects , Dark Places lays down a vivid and plainspoken narrative that can read like the most jet-fueled of airport thrillers but is still bejeweled with sparkling asides and dead-on commentary. Her writing is, as needed, funny, perceptive, headslappingly honest, or sometimes an amalgam of the three. That this all happens in a book whose plot seems at first ripped from a Dateline NBC true crime is all the more impressive.
The novel references other books, little Easter eggs nestled in the plot. An addictive read. Told from two perspectives, Gone Girl forces you to ask yourself, what would you do and who dunnit? Gone Girl is a fast-paced, always surprising page-turner of a book. Gone Girl is a superbly crafted novel by a talented and daring young writer and it will keep you guessing until the very last sentence.
You begin by thinking that all marriages are a bit like this: they start with high hopes and get bogged down in nagging and money worries. But then the psycho-drama creeps up on you with chilling power. A five-star suspense mystery. Flynn keeps the accelerator firmly to the floor, ratcheting up the tension with wildly unexpected plot twists, contradictory stories and the tantalizing feeling that nothing is as it seems.
Deviously good. When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. The shape of it, to begin with. The very first time I saw her, it was the back of the head I saw, and there was something lovely about it, the angles of it. Like a shiny, hard corn kernel or a riverbed fossil. She had what the Victorians would call finely shaped head.
You could imagine the skull quite easily. I think of that too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes.
Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy? I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you?
What have we done to each other? What will we do? My eyes flipped open at exactly six a. This was no avian fluttering of the lashes, no gentle blink toward consciousness. The awakening was mechanical.
A spooky ventriloquist-dummy click of the lids: The world is black and then, showtime! It felt different. I rarely woke at such a rounded time. I was a man of jagged risings: , , My life was alarmless. At that exact moment, , the sun climbed over the skyline of oaks, revealing its full summer angry-god self. Its reflection flared across the river toward our house, a long, blaring finger aimed at me through our frail bedroom curtains.
Accusing: You have been seen. You will be seen. The kind of house that is immediately familiar: a generically grand, unchallenging, new, new, new house that my wife would— and did—detest. But the only houses for rent were clustered in this failed development: a miniature ghost town of bank-owned, recession-busted, price-reduced mansions, a neighborhood that closed before it ever opened. To Amy, it was a punishing whim on my part, a nasty, selfish twist of the knife.
I would drag her, caveman-style, to a town she had aggressively avoided, and make her live in the kind of house she used to mock. One of us was always angry. Amy, usually. Do not blame me for this particular grievance, Amy. The Missouri Grievance. Blame the economy, blame bad luck, blame my parents, blame your parents, blame the Internet, blame people who use the Internet. I used to be a writer. I was a writer who wrote about TV and movies and books. Back when people read things on paper, back when anyone cared about what I thought.
New York was packed with writers, real writers, because there were magazines, real magazines, loads of them. Think about it: a time when newly graduated college kids could come to New York and get paid to write. We had no clue that we were embarking on careers that would vanish within a decade. All around the country, magazines began shuttering, succumbing to a sudden infection brought on by the busted economy.
Three weeks after I got cut loose, Amy lost her job, such as it was. That, she would tell you, is typical. Just like Nick, she would say. It was a refrain of hers: Just like Nick to. Two jobless grown-ups, we spent weeks wandering around our Brooklyn brownstone in socks and pajamas, ignoring the future, strewing unopened mail across tables and sofas, eating ice cream at ten a.
Then one day the phone rang. My twin sister was on the other end. Margo had moved back home after her own New York layoff a year before— the girl is one step ahead of me in everything, even shitty luck. Our dad was nearly gone—his nasty mind, his miserable heart, both murky as he meandered toward the great gray beyond. But it looked like our mother would beat him there.
About six months, maybe a year, she had.
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