Gone Girl

By: Gillian Flynn

Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Kirby Heyborne

Length: 19 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

What are you thinking, Amy? The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions storm cloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do? Just how well can you ever know the person you love?

These are the questions that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately 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 aren't his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife? And what was in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war.

©2012 Gillian Flynn (P)2012 Random House

Terrible story, great performances

** spoiler alert ** Gone Girl - that is such an unassuming title. And it does have rather stellar reviews. So with my audible credit available, I got Gone Girl. To be honest, a 2 star rating makes it sound rather horrible, even though I did not quite hate it. Is it avoidable, sure. And as a book, entirely. But the audio book was really well done. As an audio-book I would rate it at 3.5, and those additional stars are entirely for the performances which I loved.

The story itself can be reviewed in two distinct parts. As character studies of the two leads and then the story itself. The first part of it is pretty well done. We get a blow by blow narration of the events and thoughts as they happen by the two characters. So no one can really complain we don’t get the motivations of the characters. Besides, the narration technique can come across as self aware as the aurlthor decides, which is a handy tool to paint a character as they want it.

Unfortunately, that is the only really positive thing about the book. Unfortunately, I don’t even place that much value in that particular quality. Primarily because no one is that self aware, and, I dare say, consistent in the first place. A lighter, much narrower awareness, sure. But here the narrative-diary style is used to layout an entire mind map of the two lead characters. If only people came with manuals like that. What makes stories, and life in general, so much more exciting is the sheer unpredictability of people. But Amy and nick, ask them the exact thought they had at 3.23 pm on Friday, they could probably tell you.

That criticism, however, is minor. It is the author’s call to decide on how she wants to present the story. I might or might not like it, but I will take it if I don’t mind the story.

Therein lies the much bigger problem. The story. It sucked balls. (Spoilers ahead)

First of all we waste undue amount of time on an actual diary within the diary-narration of the book. Turns out Amy was writing a fake diary to frame her husband, nick for her murder. Unfortunately you can spot the twist a mile a away. At least much prior to the actual reveal. But I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case, since there was so much of the book left. But the reveal happened, and then it felt like there was nothing else left to the book. But after that, we get to hear the real Amy. And Man, she can brag. We all know of such people, and don’t they get on our nerves. Unfortunately her brilliance is rather, umm, random. She concocts this cartoon-super-villain plan, and we are supposed to believe her end game was to kill her self. Yeah, she is not Moriarty crazy, and doesn’t come across like it either. And then, she can’t get her expense budget straight. But she is “smart” to keep a jar of vomit, a bundle of hair, and some semen handy just in case.

I did not know of the ending when I had begun the book, but one way or the other I did not care for it. Like many things in the world, in-complete endings, if I can call them that, are just another thing I am desensitised to. I don’t mind authors claim that she never intended to see justice done. But that required Amy to store a jar of semen? And there was no discrepancy in a plan that was more convoluted than bane’s in the dark knight rises? Yeah, Amy was so brilliant, she even thought of rolling around in a trunk in which she was supposedly kidnapped, and even left an old hair from her bag of old hair clippings. Sure, it’s a nice touch - the guy sticking in a marriage for the kids - but the perverse feminism is grossly misplaced.

In the end, I wish the book began where the second part began. And I wish it was more about the battle of wits between Amy and nick. And if Amy were to escape justice with a final haha, it could have been some other way. Sure, would have been nice to see nick happy in the end, but if that wasn’t to be, perhaps Amy could be cruel enough, and brilliant enough to have planned the frame-up and the return both - and ended by telling nick. I wanted to punish you, and your punishment is to have to spend your entire life with me.

Bleak, too much F-ing Language

It could have at least had a clever or even satisfying ending...written well but where's the plot, where's character development? What did they learn, what did we discover?