Gone Girl

Bibliography

Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. Print.

image from:  www.amazon.com

My Thoughts

I finally did it and read a "red star" book**. This is not my genre, but I really enjoyed this story. There was more mystery in it than blood and guts (even though one of the main characters is murdered). Additionally, there was a large amount of sex and language that I should put a warning here.

**"red star books" in my library are murder/mystery/drama/blood & guts, scary stuff

Part One: Boy Loses Girl

The story starts simply enough with Nick Dunne as the narrator setting the scene.This married couple has faced hardships and relocation. Now, they are living in his Missouri hometown. The next chapter is Amy Elliott's (Nick's now wife) diary entry. In the diary,we see her side of their marriage. The chapters' narrator is listed at the top so the reader knows from which side of the story we are reading. This is not confusing (and once the characters settle in for the reader, the "named" chapters are almost unnecessary).

It is the couple's fifth wedding anniversary when Amy goes missing.
Amy's expectations of marriage are not met (Flynn 40). Nick lies to the police (admitted to the reader) at least five times in the first encounter (Flynn 37). The mystery begins.

The police detectives who come to investigate Amy's disappearance are named Jim Gilpin and Rhonda Boney. Nick explains that his brain was having "mental gas I couldn't control. Like, I'd started internally singing the lyrics to 'Bony Moronie' whenever I saw my cop friend...my brain would bebop as Detective Rhonda Boney" talked (Flynn 78). I laughed. Not because of the insensitivity of Nick,but it reminded me of my dad teaching this song to my daughter. I didn't know it was a real song.

Another thing that I laughed about was the distinction Amy makes about bulk shoppers. "Republicans go to Sam's Club, Democrats go to Costco" (Flynn 119). HA!

There are many things I read in this first part of the book that I believed to be clues to the story. There is a mistress. Nick says he's a "big fan of the lie of omission" (Flynn 133). He "sees" Amy in a dream crawling on the kitchen floor. It turns out Amy is pregnant. Nick realizes that he got better, smarter, more alive because of Amy. "That was both our making and our undoing...I had pretended to be one kind of many and revealed myself to be quite another" (Flynn 214).  Then...

Part Two: Boy Meets Girl
I AM SHOCKED! I cannot believe what I'm reading! This is quite a twist that I absolutely was not expecting. In fact, I thought I had the story figured out and would have to endure the remainder of the book. I was wrong about what I "knew" from Part One. I don't want to write here what happens because I want future readers to feel the suspense and shock as I did. Part Two kept me reading to get to Part Three. Good job, Gillian Flynn!

Part Three: Boy Gets Girl Back (Or Vice Versa)
These last 46 pages are the resolution to Nick and Amy's story. I am surprised by the ending, but after thinking about the "clues" that were given in the rest of the book, the story could only end in the way it does.

I will chance reading more "red star" books, and especially more of Gillian Flynn.


On a side note, my husband and I watched the movie after I read the book. I liked that the movie stayed pretty close to the book, with some omissions, of course.