Bookish Thoughts: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Crown, 2012
Crime Fiction; 432 pgs

Warning: Possible spoilers.  I tried to be as vague as I could, but still write what I wanted to say about the book.

This is one of those books that everyone was talking about--and still is--when it first came out.  It is a book that polarized readers, they either loved or hated the book.  There wasn't much in between.  I admit the hype put me off the book at first.  The constant barrage of "I never saw that coming!" and "Oh my G--!" made me suspicious.  When I mentioned on Twitter about how such simple phrases could be spoil worthy, Charlie from The Worm Hole said, "You'd be looking for something surprising in everything . . . "  And, truth be told, when I began reading the book, I didn't trust anyone and suspected everyone.

Amy and Nick seemed well matched.  Two young people looking for love.  He a mid-Western writer and she a writer from New York.  They meet with hard times when they both end up losing their jobs.  Nick decides to move them from big city New York to small town Missouri to help his twin sister care for his ailing parents.  Neither Amy nor Nick are very happy at this point.  Then comes their fifth wedding anniversary.  Amy goes missing, believed to be murdered.

By the time the pair moved to Missouri, I knew.  I had the characters pegged and knew exactly where the story was going to go.  Gone Girl made me realize just how spoiler-y the simple phrase of "I didn't see that coming!" can be.  Admittedly, I'm already a problem solving reader.  When I pick up a mystery, my brain just automatically starts moving the pieces of the puzzle around to find their perfect spots.  It is something I do subconsciously.  I have never been able to completely shut that part of my brain off.  So, would I have picked up on the clues had I not been told over and over again that I should expect the unexpected with this novel?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It's hard to say.

In the scheme of things, I am not really sure it matters.  The truth is I really, really, really liked this book. Gillian Flynn is an amazing writer.  I was pulled in from the first sentence and the book slipped into my dreams the night I began it.  Let me tell you, I had the most disturbing dreams while I read this book. 

I was fascinated by Nick and Amy, by their relationship and them as individuals.  They intrigued me.  Amy's character in particular.  I loved how smart she was on one hand and yet how like a child she was in the more emotional sense.  Gillian Flynn did such a good job of building her characters and their backgrounds that they seemed so real.  I could almost touch them as I read about their lives.

I will give Flynn this.  I didn't know how the book would end, not exactly.  Some of it, yes.  And even despite that I was hoping for a slightly different outcome.  Not that I was disappointed at all by the way the book did end.  Ultimately, I think the most disturbing part of the book for me was the ending.  It made me sick to my stomach, and that's hard to do.

You can learn more about Gillian Flynn and her books on the author's website. 

Source: I purchased an e-copy of this book for my reading pleasure (and to see what all the fuss was about).

---

© 2013, Wendy Runyon of Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.