Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn

THE ADDICTIVE No.1 BESTSELLER AND INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON
OVER 20 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
THE BOOK THAT DEFINES PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

Who are you?
What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?

'Flynn is a brilliantly accomplished psychological crime writer and this latest book is so dark, so twisted and so utterly compelling that it actually messes with your mind' DAILY MAIL

'A near-masterpiece. Flynn is an extraordinary writer who, with every sentence, makes words do things that other writers merely dream of' SOPHIE HANNAH, Sunday Express

'You think you're reading a good, conventional thriller and then it grows into a fascinating portrait of one averagely mismatched relationship...Nothing's as it seems - Flynn is a fabulous plotter, and a very sharp observer of modern life in the aftermath of the credit crunch' THE TIMES

'One of the most popular thrillers of the year is also one of the smartest... Flynn's book cleverly outpaces its neo-noir trappings and consistently surprises the reader.' FINANCIAL TIMES

• ISBN10: 0753827662
• ISBN13: 9780753827666
• Publish Date: 3 January 2013 (first published 1 January 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
• Imprint: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 528
• Language: English

Reviews

Addictively good. Couldn't put it down. Totally messed up but amazing.

[clementine]

Wow.

Like a lot of people, I'm sure, I read the widely-disseminated "Cool Girl" passage from the second half of this book before ever picking it up. And I have to say, reading Amy's diary in the first half, I thought, "This does not seem like the same person at all."

Of course, it wasn't the same person at all.

And that's the crux of this book, really: you never know who anyone is. At first, I thought Nick was definitely innocent. Then, as the narrative went on, I was like, Well, an unreliable narrator isn't a new literary device, maybe he did kill her! And then the other shoe drops.

I liked the writing, overall, but I found that some of the figurative language was a bit contrived. In general, though, I liked the style a lot - it was a notch above average, but not so affected that it was hard to read.

I'm not sure how I feel about the ending, and that's the only thing holding me back here. Once Amy returned, everything went downhill for me. I could believe a psychopath framing her husband for murder. I found it a little harder to believe the psychopath coming home and blackmailing her husband into staying married to her and artificially inseminating herself. It was just... weird.

[Leah]

Finally got around to reading Gone Girl. I mostly loved it, up until I turned the last page and realised it was the last page. I thought I had a chapter or two missing, and could hardly believe the book ended the way it did. I was just disappointed and even after mulling it over and talking about it on Twitter (where author Claire Allan made some good points) I still expected a better ending. A book like this deserved a better ending.

But, I loved it up until that point. It was disturbingly gripping and I was never quite sure whose narrative I was meant to believe, or who to feel sorry for. I can't wait to go see the film now!

[flybymoonlight]

Gone Girl is a complicated book. It's rough and twisty and entertaining and intricate. A physiological thriller. It's a book I loved to hate.

I found the characters of Nick and Amy to be so unlikeable, I spent the first half of the novel wondering what people saw in this book. It didn't so much suck me in... more it dangled another carrot as soon as I started to lose interest. About halfway though the book, I felt committed enough to want to see how it all worked out in the end. The end itself threw me. Not what I was expecting.

The book itself is brilliant. It's gritty and manipulative and infinitely complex. It's not something I'd normally read but I'm glad I did. Sensitive readers beware though. This book is dark with a capital D.

[vagasker]

It took me a while to get throught the first 150 pages. Most of the time I put a book away if the first 100 pages don't interest me, but I'm going to see the movie next week so I kept reading. I'm kinda glad for that, because I really enjoyed the ending. (A bit) fucked up, but I enjoyed it anyway.

[girlinthepages]

With Gone Girl I was expecting a thriller. Something that would keep me up at night and make me check around corners warily. Instead, Gone Girl was not a action thriller, but rather slow-burning, psychological thriller that brings up the disturbing questions: Are the ones who are closest to you the ones who can hurt you the most? Do those who love you cut you the deepest? Do we love others because they secretly emphasize our love for ourselves?

At its core, Gone Girl was a tale of two deeply unhappy, unsatisfied people. Told with multiple narrators, the novel chronicles the marriage of very unreliable narrators, each with hidden agendas that simmer beneath the surface. After seeing the book raved about so heavily, I was surprised to find that the first part is slow. The premise of the book kept me going, but it seemed to be a sad, yet predictable tale full of flashbacks of what was probably a husband murdering his wife for insurance money. But I implore you to keep on with the text, because part two throws a curveball to readers that I absolutely did not see coming. It changed the entire pretext of the book, made me think twice about everything that I read, and really proves that Gillian Flynn is a master of laying down carefully crafted clues and scenarios.

Despite this plot twist (and many others that followed it), this book underwhelmed me in some respects. Initially the pacing was what threw me off (I mean the title really makes it seem like it’s going to be a Dangerous Girls-esque courtroom drama). At times keeping track of all of the peripheral characters, especially everyone involved in the investigation, was confusing, And the ending, while pretty unexpected, was also a bit far-fetched for me as a reader to really get on board with and buy into. Reading about the intricate details of Nick and Amy’s tenuous marriage became tedious after a while, and at times the book felt almost as if it were trying too hard/ironically to be profound and “meta.” (Example: the bar that’s named “The Bar"). In some instances it just felt overwritten, too much detail and too much narrative, and just overall trying too hard, when it already had an intriguing plot and great twist.

Despite my disappointment with some aspects of the book, I will fully admit to not being able to put it down once I hit about 100 pages. As I grew addicted to finding out the resolution, I came to be disgusted by the vices and despairs of these deeply troubled characters (they were both antagonists in a sense), yet also came to find them fascinating and found myself justifying actions for each. This is where I found Flynn’s true talent to be, that she could tell a story about such abhorrent individuals, everyday individuals, and yet write them in such a manner that it evokes sympathy or justification out of readers.

Overall: Gone Girl was a slow-burning mystery that read differently from what was promised, but delivered great plot twists and intriguing characteristics in deeply unreliable narrators. It’s worth the read, but I wouldn’t classify it as a “psychological thriller.”

[jnkay01]

I like a twisty mystery story, but this book was twisty for the sake of being twisty. The twists only served to annoy me as a reader, because there wasn't anything to the story underneath the twists. I'm curious as to how the plot will translate to film, but finishing this book made me not want to read her other books.

[ellieroth]

Lee la reseña en: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

Encontré mi modelo a seguir

Estuve un poco asustada cuando empezaba a leer el libro. No, no porque la historia fuera de miedo sino porque al inicio es lento, con toda la promoción que se hacía, esperaba sangre por todos lados, así bien bonito. Pues les digo: ese inicio lento es perfecto, está muy bien pensado por Gillian Flynn.

Me será muy difícil controlarme para esta reseña porque todo lo que quiero hacer es gritar, fangirlear y *squeeeee*



Créanme que sé que esta no es la relación que muchos tengan al concluir el libro. O sea, es un libro bastante oscuro, completamente retorcido, es un libro que necesita unas buenas terapias con el psiquiatra. Es un libro que cuándo lo terminas quieres preguntarle a la escritora Gillian Flynn: "Gilly, ¿todo está bien?" (Gilly con confianza porque somos amigas... en mi imaginación)

Está mal, está mal. ESTÁ MAAAAAAAAAAL

Mi primer pensamiento cuando llegué al final: OMG, QUIERO SER ASÍ CUANDO SEA GRANDE. En el momento climax, dónde las cosas empiezan a tomar forma, tuve que dejar de leer, pararme y dar vueltas por toda la habitación con espasmos de la emoción. Algo así:



Algo está muy mal conmigo

Sé que siempre bromeo con que tengo una ligera psicopatía, cuando leí The Lonely, ya sospechaba que hay algo retorcido en mí, pero con Gone Girl yo sólo estoy abrazando toda la locura en mí. Es la única explicación que encuentro al nivel de satisfacción que sentí leí la última línea del libro.

Perdida confirma y reafirma mi creencia sobre el matrimonio y toda esa cosa llamada amor, Gillian Flynn abrió un nuevo mundo para mí, uno bastante retorcido, pero nuevo al fin y al cabo.

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[Eve1972]

I really enjoyed this one.

[Sam@WLABB]

Amy and Nick have one of the most complicated relationships I have ever encountered in print. Their tale begins textbook procedural but takes a turn for something so different. I throughly enjoyed this book and hope the film adaptation does it justice.

The pacing of this book is such that I could not wait to read the next part. I would fight to keep my eyes open just to find out what happened next. The characters were very well developed and intriguing, they kept me riveted.

If I had to sum up this story in a short phrase, I would say twisted love story.