Thursday, October 23, 2014

Goodreads Book Review: Gone Girl

Gone GirlGone Girl by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl is a #1 New York Times bestseller which has now been adapted into a film starring Ben Affleck. The novel's popularity should come as no surprise - after a few false starts, Flynn takes the reader on a twisted ride in which nothing and no one is as it seems.

The novel opens on the 5th wedding anniversary of Amy Elliott and Nick Dunne, who have recently moved to Missouri from New York City. The tone, rather than one of happy anticipation, is immediately ominous - and then we find out Amy has disappeared.

Nick insists he is innocent, but as detectives investigate and details unfold, his story and his nervous behavior begin to look more and more suspicious, and we witness the unraveling of what he tries to convince the public is a happy marriage. But Nick and Amy's is not just the ordinary marriage gone sour, but, as we learn, something much more sinister.

After the initial suspense (the girl is gone!), the early chapters of Gone Girl stalled a bit for me, seeming to get weighed down in insignificant details. But the mystery unfolded, things that seemed implausible, cheesy, or insignificant took on new significance. Take the Amazing Amy children's book series through which Amy's parents have amassed a fortune. The books, frankly, sound ridiculous - but through them, the Elliotts have created an idealized, fantasy version of their daughter. "Amazing Amy" is a girl and later young woman who always has the right answer, always does the right thing, and living in the shadow of her "amazing" counterpart serves as motivation for much of what "real" Amy does.

Through her use of unreliable narration, Flynn masterfully screws with the reader's head. The story is told alternately by Nick in real time and by Amy in a series of diary entries dated from 2005, when she first meets Nick, to shortly before her disappearance. Both Nick and Amy are prone to frequent omissions and outright lies, and soon the reader doesn't know whose story to believe.

Flynn manages to do many things with Gone Girl. The story is as much a psychological thriller as a classic whodunit story. It also serves as an interesting commentary on the media circus surrounding "unsolved mysteries" and crime stories, from the Ellen Abbot show (think Nancy Grace) to the sleazy defense attorney Nick hires to the ever-shifting public opinion and the paparazzi perpetually parked on Nick's lawn. It even delves into gender relations in both subtle and more overt ways - the most overt being Nick's misogynistic, Alzheimer's riddled father, prone to uncoherent rants against "bitches" who have wronged him. (Note: major spoilers in the link prior).

I've come across a lot of people who really did not like the ending of Gone Girl, which I won't spoil. I'll depart from popular opinion here. I can't say I "enjoyed" the novel's ending (or in some ways, lack of an ending). But in some ways it seemed perfectly fitting to the story that the ending would be as ominous, foreboding, and uncertain as the beginning. After all, Gone Girl is a story that sticks in your mind long after it is "finished."


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