"Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn
Genre: Thriller
Read: 5th November 2014
Purchase: Amazon
★★★ 3 stars
Firstly, I would not call this the "thriller of the year". I'm not even sure it's a thriller!
I started this book a couple if months ago, recommended to me by a friend who thought I might enjoy it after hearing rave reports about it. Though she herself is not a reader, she knows how much I am and the kind of books I enjoy. I admit I struggled at first between the different perspectives, though I've read plenty in that style before. (So I stopped and read a few other books then came back to give it another go in the last week or so). This one just was so different and out of character with each chapter - neither felt in step with the other, that it just felt too fake. Nick and his sister just bitched all the time, mostly about Amy, while her perspective were her diary entries (in every other chapter) from the time she met Nick to the present day just oozed fakeness and bullshit. I didn't like Amy from the beginning...and that didn't change. The only thing that did in that respect was the depth of my dislike for her. And sadly, I found Nick - who, deep down, had so much potential - to be spineless. I guess Amy was right on that score - he was a coward.
I ended up enjoying the perspective writing. To see the story progress from both perspectives yet in different mind sets with different outcomes. That is why I gave it 3 stars. But that would have to be the only reason....because the start was boringly uneventful and the ending? Certainly nothing beyond 3 star material, though still cleverly done - with the last word bit. However, it leaves readers feeling somewhat cheated. Death? Suicide? Murder? Something other than what it became!
In the end, the whole tale is somewhat sad. Sad that this is what someone's life had become. That they would actually think and feel this way. Or even feel at all. Sociopaths feel no remorse. In fact they don't even see that what they are doing or have done is even wrong! That the whole world really does revolve around them. They are the all-time narcissist - one without feeling. And this book has them both - two narcissists, one of whom is a sociopath.
