Gone Girl
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Hardcover - USA - 1st edition. |
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Gone Girl is a mystery novel by Gillian Flynn, first published on 2012-06-05. The book was adapted to film in 2015. The story revolves around Nick Dunne who comes home to discover his wife Amy Elliott Dunne is missing, apparently due to abduction. Nick tries to figure out what happened to her while the police have him as their number one suspect. Backstory is filled in with alternating chapters from his wife's personal journal entries which detail their initial meeting, relationship, marriage, and descent into troubles and fighting.
Personal
| Own? | No. |
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| Read? | No. |
While searching for a new book written by a woman, I saw this title and remembered hearing that it did very well, so I gave it a shot. I wish I hadn't. I started listening to the audiobook read by Kerby Heyborne and Julia Whelan, but became so annoyed with it about 40% in that I stopped. I read a plot synopsis and was glad I didn't continue, as I would have hated it even more.
Review
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Overall: |
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— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- Interweaving the present investigation happening to Nick with past events from Amy's diary was an interesting format. It allows the reader to compare Amy's evolving opinion of their relationship to Nick's current view.
Bad
- For the first half of the book, Nick and Amy are both dull characters. They each have some good traits, but, overall, Nick is selfish, inattentive, and disloyal and Amy is naive, privileged, and dismissive; they're neither awful nor great, so they're not interesting either. I never really cared if Amy was alive or dead or if Nick was guilty or innocent.
- Nick never seems to care about his missing wife. He's always taking breaks from the treasure hunt, always waiting for everyone else to do things for him. It goes beyond frustrating to the point of having a hard time believing a person would act in such a blasé way.
- A large part of the book is Amy and Nick arguing over petty things. Though I understand using this as a educational tool for the reader, a sort of cautionary tale about the importance of learning to communicate with your spouse, it just keeps dragging on.
Ugly
- It seems like Flynn couldn't make up her mind if she was going to write a mystery novel or a romance novel, so both genres feel diluted. There isn't enough mystery to be intriguing and there isn't enough romance to be exhilarating. The end result is a book that is boring.
- This book is so bad, I gave up on it just before making it halfway. After reading a plot synopsis, I'm glad I did. The plot keeps getting more and more ridiculous as the story progresses. I'm mad at the author for wasting my time. I honestly don't understand why anyone would like this garbage.
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