Gone Girl

“Something bad was about to happen. My wife was being clever again.”

“Page Turner” is the most accurate description I can come up with- it took me almost two weeks to finish Never Let Me Go and only two days to finish Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (which is about 100 pages longer). I realize I’m late to the discusion, Gone Girl seemed to populate the internet all of last year and has been officially cast by Hollywood for an October release. I wonder if my husband would find it ironic to see this for our Anniversary?

“Friends see most of each other’s flaws. Spouses see every awful last bit.”

The novel opens on the morning of Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary, Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented house in Nick’s hometown of Carthage, Missouri. The story is told from both Nick’s point of view and Amy’s point of view through diary entries. There are a lot of lies and exposed secrets, as well as several twists to keep the reader engaged.

“I was told love should be unconditional. That’s the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge?”

It’s hard to review Gone Girl without being too spoilerly and most of the reviews I’ve read boiled down to my same reaction “excellently written” and “I hate all the characters.” I’m actually a little afraid of Gillian Flynn because as the creator of Amy Dunne she is therefore smarter than Amy Dunne- and clearly a psychological force to be reckoned with.