Disturbing and Capitivating   6 comments

I was on the library’s waiting list for Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl for months. When it was finally ready for me to check out, I was impatient to start reading. After mentioning this to a friend, her reaction was less than exuberant, it was baffling. After all, the novel was so popular there’d been hundreds ahead of me waiting for a library copy. It’s been on Publisher Weekly’s list of Best Hardcover Fiction for 15 weeks – and appears pretty comfortable there. I pressed my friend for more, but she held fast: we’d talk when I finished.

Gone Girl is a mystery on several levels, including how I spent time living with such unlikeable characters for the past week? The story follows the disappearance of Amy on her fifth wedding anniversary. By all indications, her husband, Nick, is responsible. Amy and Nick alternate as narrators. The book is divided into three sections. The first focuses on the disappearance, possibly abduction or possibly murder. Nick comes across as shallow and surprised, not upset, at his wife’s unexplained absence. He seems guilty, which is reinforced by Amy-as-victim told through diary entries.

The second and third sections of the book reveal much more about Amy’s ability to weave complicated webs of deceit. It’s not that Nick is suddenly less appalling, but Amy is more so.  Flynn is a craftswoman. Her characters are fully developed as repulsive and intriguing. They’re also scary, always a good thing for a mystery, and I couldn’t look away. I need to talk to my friend.

Gone Girl
Four Bookmarks
Crown Publishers, 2012
415 pages

6 responses to “Disturbing and Capitivating

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  1. Sounds like an intriguing book!

  2. Wow….I just breezed through this book, wanting to know how it would end, and hoping it would never end. Sigh…. that’s what’s so upsetting about a good book.
    I can’t wait to talk with other readers – did you figure out Amy’s plan before Nick did?

  3. Cel mai bun articol despre Disturbing and Capitivating pe
    care l-am citit Ora Exacta pana acum!

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