Gone Girl: A Novel

Gillian Flynn

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “mercilessly entertaining” (Vanity Fair) instant classic “about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships” (Lev Grossman, Time “One of the Best Books of the Decade”)

ONE OF TIME'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME, ONE OF CNN'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE, AND ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Janet Maslin, The New York Times, People, Entertainment Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Kansas City Star, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, HuffPost, Newsday

• ISBN10: 0385347774
• ISBN13: 9780385347778
• Publish Date: 8 November 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Ballantine Books
• Edition: International edition
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 576
• Language: English

Reviews

[Nessa Luna]

Read this review, and many more on my blog October Tune!

I had heard that this book was being made into a movie a couple of months ago, and I got curious. I watched the trailer and I decided I wanted to try out the book. So when I saw it for only 6 euros on Bol's website, I decided to add it to my cart. I have to admit, I didn't love it as much as I thought I would.

I really like mystery books, where a murder has happened and it needs to be solved. Of course, there is always a story around it, about either one of the detectives (like with the cuckoo's calling) or about (one of) the suspect(s), which is what this book is about. We can also read entries from Amy's diary between Nick's chapters.

And that is one of the things I didn't like. I am not a big fan of flashbacks, though I think it was very necessary in this story, to fully understand what had happened, but still - I didn't like it. In fact, I was so annoyed by all the flashbacks in the first part of the story, that I considered putting the book down and watching the movie instead. The only thing I wanted to know was 'where is Amy'.

In the second part of the book, things got more exciting, and I found myself reading more easily and with more interest. There were no more diary entries, though still a couple of flashbacks, which was still a bit annoying, but the story got more thrilling in my opinion.

Like with any other mystery novel, I suspected a lot of people, but never the right ones, though some of them did their best to make themselves look very guilty. I can say, I wasn't very surprised when we finally found out what had happened, but as I read on, it started to sound extremely ridiculous and way too extreme. But I liked it.

The writing was very nice, and it made me want to read at least one other book by Gillian Flynn, but I have to admit I hope it will be easier to read than Gone Girl.

In the end, I barely got through the first half of Gone girl, but I ended up really liking the second part, which is why I gave it three stars (instead of the two stars I had been thinking about giving it). If you like mystery novels with a lot of flashbacks, I definitely recommend Gone Girl to you.

My opinion of this book in one gif: