Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Okay, I've been interested in this book for a while now, especially since I enjoyed Gillian Flynn's other novels. So I put it on hold at the library and started reading it as soon as it came in.
I was hooked! The writing is great, the plot intriguing, but the characters seemed unreliable from the very beginning. Still, I kept reading, actually couldn't stop because like Nick and Amy, I was getting deeper and deeper into their very dark story.
It's Nick and Amy's fifth Wedding Anniversary, and Amy has gone missing. There's a bit of a mess in the living room, and then there's the blood that has been cleaned in the kitchen. Plus there's the scavenger hunt, and the credit cards, and the items purchased with these credit cards. Everything leads to Nick possibly killing his wife, but he denies it. Even after it's revealed that he was cheating on her with a much younger woman.
As the reader, I disliked Nick right away. Amy wasn't much better. Her diary entries are... hollow. And it doesn't take long to figure out why. See, in the second part of this book, Amy enters the scene and actually tells the reader how she went about setting up her husband. How she saved money, pretended to be pregnant, took out credit cards and bought awful movies that make him sound like an evil bastard. She's hiding out, watching from a distance and enjoying her punishment. But he's not stupid, and via interviews starts wooing her back with his clothes, hair, and words.
It's really all very pathetic. And in the end she kinda gets herself into an imprisoned situation she manages to use to her advantage. The manipulative, evil ways of this woman are truly 'amazing' in a depraved, disgusting sort of way.
I've never HATED two characters as much as I hated these two. They were selfish, self-centred, entitled assholes that lied, cheated and manipulated their way through life. Their marriage was a contest, a way to beat each other in horrid ways that would end with them actually respecting the low ways they used each other. It was truly awful to watch. Ugh.
Actually, his lawyer nails it: "You two are the most fucked-up people I have ever met, and I specialize in fucked-up people."
These two truly are despicably, fucked up individuals. But you know what was worse? THE ENDING. I hated that ending. WTF? It made everything so much worse.
I had a real love/hate reaction to this story.
But I still want to watch the movie. ;)
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