Gone Girl

Written by Gillian Flynn and now made into a major film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl is the truly twisted and undeniably addictive, sinister romantic thriller that has you turning pages like there’s no tomorrow. Whilst it’s a thriller not up to the lofty standards of Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, it definitely ascends the same ladder, just a few rungs behind, and sits as a truly twisted, thrilling, and addictive reading experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it! 

The morning of Nick and Amy’s fifth wedding anniversary begins like any other; that is until Nick returns for reading at the beach to discover his living room a shambles and his wife missing. Nick is the prime suspect and a strong case builds against him when Amy’s friends reveal that she was afraid of him, her own diary claims this as well, and that she kept secrets from him. Nick swears none of this is true, that something is amiss, but then a police examination of his computer reveals some strange searches. He swears he didn’t make them. His credit card records show some very large purchases. Not done by him. As the noose tightens around Nick, only one person can save him. So where is Amy? 

I have to admit that my reading experience would have been affected because I actually saw the film first. Normally, I’m a big advocate of reading the book before I see the flick, but in the case of Gone Girl I was at the movies with 4 hours to kill and it seemed like the only movie worth watching. It’s funny how fascinations can start like that. I can say that the film is a close adaptation of the novel, practically spot on! It’s a book that’s a little bit hard to get into at first. 

Written in the first person past tense, the characters retelling the story to us first-hand, it’s a bit hard to get into at first because it is a real he-said she-said king of thing and because the writing is nothing overly marvellous in terms of literary excellence, sometimes it’s quite everyday and generic, it gives the illusion that nothing is actually happening and the book is not that interesting. However, once you’re onto, I don’t know, page 50, you find that you can’t help from just continually reading on and on and on. What causes this? 

What this story ultimately is is quite possibly the greatest character study! Whilst the events of the plot are thrilling and inspire you to say out loud “that’s SO twisted!”, what Gone Girl is really about is the ability of people to change and, more so, their ability to change others. The seminal questions asked are “who are you?” and “what have we done to each other?” and the book works on these questions, moulding them into themes that string up this chain of intense cat-and-mouse play. What’s particularly brilliant is how the simplicity and the everyday voice that both Nick and Amy have as they tell their stories turns them into real 3-dimensional people, they could be your very own neighbours, because the realness of the writing makes Nick and Amy all the more intricate and really animates them into more than characters on a page. The personal register of the first person really rounds this out and their open addresses to the reader, a somewhat metafictive trick that comments on the books status as a story, cements Amy and Nick as people, not characters. It’s really quite wonderful! 

Filled with suspense, drama, misinterpretations, narrative misdirection, and ironically enough a really different kind of romance, Gone Girl is an absolutely brilliant book that’s very addictive. It’s sinister, it’s unbelievable, and what makes it so much so is the fact that the characters are elevated by the writing to the status of real people, which contrasts starkly with the horrible things they do over the span of over 400 pages! This is a book you feel you can, but really can’t put down. It’s great!