Bite The Book – Book Reviews and Industry Views

Gillian Flynn’s GONE GIRL

July 24, 2012 at 10:36 pm 7 comments

I don’t know where to start with this book other than WOW! I’d heard and read a lot of buzz about this book but the buzz hadn’t hooked me. Mainly because the buzz wasn’t very descriptive. People I follow on twitter or spoke to in the bookshop kept saying how brilliant it was and wouldn’t elaborate. After a small run of not being able to get into a next book I decided that it was time to give Gone Girl a crack. And now I know why everyone is so taken with the book (and why they won’t elaborate!)

Firstly there is only so much you can say without ruining the book and there is no way I want to do that. Secondly the story operates on a number of different levels that it literally makes your head explode. This is one of the best pieces of modern day noir I have ever read. There are the absolute classics from the 30s, 40s and 50s like Double Indemnity but it is a tradition of crime writing that is few and far between in the modern era which is dominated by the detective/murder mystery. Gillian Flynn updates this noir tradition with skill, intelligence, biting insight and cunning plotting. You literally get so engrossed and addicted to the story that you don’t fully appreciate how absolutely brilliant, devious and ingenious Gillian Flynn is.

Without giving anything away Gone Girl is told from the point of view of a husband and wife, Nick and Amy. The novel opens with Nick’s point of view as he discovers that his wife has gone missing. The story alternates with Amy’s diary entries that detail how Nick and Amy first met and their relationship. You get both sides of their relationship: the compromises, the resentments, the highs, the lows, the good times and the bad. You see their marriage, warts and all including the miscommunications, the misunderstandings and its slow breakdown. You’re not quite sure what is really going on or which side of the marriage your sympathy should lie on.

And then about 50 pages in a character admits to telling their fifth lie. And straight away you want, no you NEED, to know what the first four were. And you’re hooked! Hook, line and sinker!!

Make sure you set some reading time aside before you start this because you will become addicted, very quickly. You have been warned! I had withdrawals when I wasn’t reading it and my mind is still exploding. Read this before your friends do and then make them read it too because you’re going to need to discuss the ending with people, lots of people.

Entry filed under: Book Reviews. Tags: books, gillian flynn, marriage, noir, thriller.