Gone Girl
Publisher:
Broadway Books (2012)
Author:
Gillian Flynn
Genre:
Mystery, Thriller
Pages:
422
Price:
$15.00
On a warm summer morning in
North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding
anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being
made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears.
Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with
cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s
head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl
perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under
mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s
fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless
series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly
evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?
When I heard that David Fincher would be directing a movie version of
this book I knew I had to read it. I'm of the camp that reads the
book before seeing the movie. Does it sometimes result in
disappointment? Yes, but its also the way the story was originally
meant to be told, and that's how I like to experience a story for the
first time. When I found out that Gillian Flynn was going to be
penning the screenplay, and changing things up to keep readers on
their toes it was a done deal, read away.
Let me say that I love the concept of an unreliable narrator. While
having someone tell you a story in real life, twisting it to their
own self-serving purposes sucks, it just works for me in literature.
As the reader you know that there are nuggets of truth in what's
being told and you have to figure out which details go into the truth
pile, and which ones to discard as lies. It adds a dimension to the
story that is lacking when the reader knows they can trust everything
the narrator tells them. Gillian Flynn pulls this off masterfully,
you loathe Nick Dunne, then you sympathize with him, then you can't
trust him as far as you could kick him. He's smarmy and
untrustworthy, and maybe worse, maybe a killer.
Just
when you think you know what's going on Mrs. Flynn pulls the rug out
from under you and leaves your head spinning. With basically no one
in the story to trust the reader is drawn deeper into lies upon lies
before the truly unsettling conclusion, when its revealed exactly how
far some people may go to get what they want. Gillian Flynn has been
accused of painting very unflattering portraits of her characters,
especially women, but I find this to be unfounded criticism. She
writes people as people, some good, some bad, regardless of their
gender. Instead of finding misogyny in it I find it refreshing to
find that the characters that she writes feel like real people, not
archetypes out of whom I know exactly what to expect.
Conclusion:
Well-written and exciting, Gone
Girl
keeps the reader on their toes and holds nothing back. Just when you
think a character's actions can't get more despicable you're proven
wrong.
Rating:
8/10
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