Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn

[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.