Gone Girl
Book - 2012
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Opinion
From Library Staff
From Library Staff
In finely wound, deft prose Flynn unpicks the torrid fabric of the lives of a seemingly perfect, privileged married couple, whose relationship becomes the subject of inquiry after Amy, the wife, goes missing. Pacey and dark, with Flynn's signature style of suspense, 'Gone Girl' is a thrilling nov... Read More »
Adult Fiction. A New York Times Bestseller and adapted into a movie, there's a reason why this thriller has rave reviews. Nick and Amy are seemingly happily married when Amy disappears without a trace. Narrated by present-day Nick and told through Amy’s diary entries, the story gets very dark and... Read More »
A marriage gone sour and life in post economic meltdown America frame this clever mystery. Two convincing and competing voices narrate the story, husband Nick and missing wife Amy. Sharp and a little bit nasty.
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Quotes
Add a Quote"The worst feeling: when you just have to wait and prepare yourself for the lie."
"You drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine."
"People say children from broken homes have it hard, but the children of charmed marriages have their own particular challenges."
"We weren’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves – surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way."
"Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase?"
"It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters."
Age Suitability
Add Age SuitabilityBookReadingJunkie thinks this title is suitable for 18 years and over
maroon_eagle_45 thinks this title is suitable for between the ages of 10 and 99
Brown_Hamster_20 thinks this title is suitable for 13 years and over
Summary
Add a SummaryCompelling plot and thought provoking, especially regarding the nature of relationships vs the meaning of love.
Children book star Amy Elliot disappears the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary. The prime suspect is in fact her husband, Nick Dunne. Although Nick denies any knowledge of Amy's disappearance, there's a trail of evidence pointing to his involvement. What truly happened to Amy?
On the day of Nick and Amy’s fifth wedding anniversary, Nick heads home in the afternoon and finds his wife gone and their living room destroyed. Besides reacting inappropriately to his wife being missing (being pretty calm about the whole thing), Nick is also lies to the cops and soon becomes the prime suspect in what has bloomed into a murder investigation. As chapters alternate between Nick’s perspective and Amy’s diary entries, readers will grow increasingly aware that their marriage is far from perfect. However, did Nick really kill Amy? If not, where is she?
Two very self absorbed, selfish sociopaths plan and scheme in order to make each other better psychopaths.
In depth love story about two people, one who is psycho and one who is afraid of who he may become. Terrible tangle of lies, deceit, mental abuse and finally, the breaking point.
After leaving New York, Amy moves in and lives with Nick in his house. Everything is going fine until the day of their fifth anniversary, Nick goes home and finds out that his wife has gone missing. As the police opens an investigation, they discovers dark secrets inside the marriage of the couple.
A great summer / vacation read! Fast moving plot with surprising turns and relationship drama. Definitely written with a screen plan in mind, a la Dan Brown. Enjoyed it enough to see the movie, too -- I just hope they don't change the ending...
AnneDromeda
Sep 24, 2012
Let me preface this review by stating that I know I’m late to this party. I do. But now that I’m here, I really do not want you to miss it. Have you read *Gone Girl* yet? No? Holy cats, people, you must get on it, and here’s why:<br />
Nick and Amy Dunne have it all - living in a Manhattan brownstone, handsome Nick works as a writer for a highbrow magazine, and beautiful Amy is the benefactor of an empire of children’s books created by her parents in her image. The Dunnes met in the cutest of cute meets, their dialogue is witty, their sex life is charged and adventurous. Having become accustomed to living in the charmed lap of luxury, they are doubly surprised when the financial meltdown claims Nick’s job and Amy’s trust fund. Listless, with no work to tie them to Manhattan, Nick proposes they move back to his native Missouri to look after his ailing parents.<br />
Things take a very dark turn in Missouri; the marriage flounders, and Amy goes missing the morning of their fifth anniversary. The scene initially suggests a struggle with an intruder, but police soon determine the struggle scene is staged. Traces of blood – a lot of blood – are found in another location. Very soon, it is assumed that Amy is dead, and Nick is the prime suspect.<br />
Flynn weaves a dark, deft tale of psychological terror, juxtaposing Amy’s diary entries leading to her disappearance with chapters detailing the minutiae of Nick’s life and mind under the microscope of police and media. Flynn has a gift for building characters’ psychological profiles so completely that readers feel they know exactly what comes next because they really know the people in the story. But you don’t know the people in the story, not like you think you do; and when the whole novel turns a dime-tight twist halfway through, your sense of sick dread is amplified knowing things are much darker, weirder and more complex than you ever thought. <br />
*Gone Girl* is a masterpiece among psychological thrillers that will keep you awake all night. Bring snacks. You aren’t going to want to get up for anything once you get reading.<br />
Notices
Add NoticesCoarse Language: There is a lot of coarse language throughout the entire book.
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Boring.
Just watch the movie.
Some the reviews make comments that this story has no good guys, no redeeming characters. They are correct. But that's just brutal realism. Often times, there is no good. There is just a story with characters. And this story is good. I won't ruin anything here but the plot has multiple twists that I didn't see coming. Read this for the craziness. You'll enjoy it.
Manipulative book with no winners, only losers. Sociopathic wife fakes her death to punish her husband for not behaving properly in their dysfunctional relationship.
Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is a psychological thriller and mystery novel told in three parts from two points of view: Nick’s and Amy’s. When Nick’s wife, Amy, disappears the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick, as well as the police, attempt to figure out what exactly happened. The novel explores the consequences of Amy’s disappearance and Amy and Nick’s marriage: the backstory of their relationship and the facades they adopted to maintain their relationship.
Because of the book’s structure, Nick and Amy were able to both share their sides of the story. I enjoyed that both Nick and Amy were liars and that both of their stories were biased. As a result, the marriage has no true antagonist because both Nick and Amy are not free of blame. I also liked that, despite the pretend nature of their relationship, Nick and Amy still know each other better than anyone else. Furthermore, I enjoyed Amy’s character: she is a strong, independent woman but can also be calculating and selfish to a fault.
Gone Girl also portrayed the fallout of the 2008-2009 recession realistically (with the two main characters having lost their jobs as writers), and I felt the novel expressed and highlighted the hollowness of the bankrupt, stagnant Midwest (post the 2008 recession) well. Flynn also poked fun at the media: after Amy disappears, the media pervades almost every aspect of the case. The author mocks how the media heavily manipulates the public’s opinion and affects the direction the case takes.
The ending of the story was unexpected, however, as I thought that Nick’s choice was unbelievable and not fitting considering the status of their relationship. Nonetheless, Nick's decision reinforces the idea that relationships and marriages have a pseudo side to them: a he-said, she-said part. Ultimately, Flynn’s Gone Girl explores the insane, crazy parts of Amy and Nick well and showcases the story of an interesting and very complicated marriage.
Read this before and knew that I'd have to reread in order to appreciate the sequence of events & the meticulous planning that the main female character created. The male came across a bit thin, but that's what made the weave of the tale work. A horror story of a different sort.
I didn't like this book. The writing style is deplorable. The characters were nasty, with the exception of Go. The story was plenty creepy and the ending just left everything hang.
If people like Amy & Nick Dunne exist in the world, it's my fervent hope that they are locked away in mental institutions.
In my opinion, this is one of Gillian Flynn's best works (my #2 being "Dark Places" followed by "Sharp Objects")! I hope she is in the process of writing more books - I will heavily anticipate upcoming stories. In true Gillian Flynn fashion, there were several unexpected twists in the book (e.g. Diary Amy, the Desi plotline, PART 3) that kept me hooked page after page. As soon as I finished, my partner and I burst into "what the heck" mode and discussed every storyline in the book. I'm excited to watch the film adaptation to see how it holds true to the book!
I figured out majority of the twists in the first 200 pages. I read to many mystery books to not catch them. I had to think about this book for a few days to gauge if I loved it, liked it, or absolutely hated it. At the moment I'm in betweeen all 3. The ending didn't feel right. If I had to chose a character to like I think it would be Nick I don't condone what he did if anything I despise it. I do feel as if Nick got stuck with Amy due to the deception from the very beginning of their relation. The plot and wording was interesting. It was difficult to identify with either Nick or Amy because they both had their flaws. Overall, I don't see the hype around this book aside from the authors diction. This book is most definitely a one time read for me. If you are into really twisted marriages read this book.
I dare you to put this down. Side note, the film adaptation rocks. 5/5
I liked it. I did. But... a disappointment because I loved her other two soooo much. Amy disappears - it looks at best like an abduction but most likely a murder and the police and the Nancy Grace whipped-into-a-frenzy public all believe it's the husband. But this is Gillian Flynn and nothing is like it appears...
The good: the writing is simply superb. Razor sharp, brilliant, bitingly humorous, characteristically acute. The not so good: the surprises didn't surprise me. And what made her first two novels so special - the jaw-dropping, flesh crawling, almost gothic twists, turns, and reveals - were missing. No shocks in the dollhouses here.
Still enjoyed it. Still glad I read it. But she set the bar so high with Sharp Objects and Dark Places, and she didn't reach it this time.