Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Gone Girl

Top notch thriller... Genuinely. Some thing I could have lived without were all the fat-phobic, ageist and sexist remarks; The overly redundant obsession with reminding the reader "men suck/women suck".

Nick and Amy were genuinely raw and unfiltered, both awful people in their own respects- yet I found unnecessary observations made about people's bodies..... On one hand it did help grind home your loathing for Nick and Amy, but c'mon. The descriptions were a little borderline and niche for my taste, which is sus if you ask me. 🤔

So much of this book centered around the internal monologue of someone trying to convince the reader why the opposite gender is trash... After the first couple hundred pages of that- we get it, the characters are sexist a**holes, now you're beating a dead horse.

At any rate, a stellar plot/storyline, just a little too much humdrum for me. 😅 Oddly enough, I would still recommend it. 🥴🤷🏻‍♀️

Content Warnings

abicaro17's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book is vicious. I adore how you never truly like or trust Nick and Amy. You always feel that there is something we as an audience dont know. I mean I can't help but root for Amy as a girls girl but both Nick and Amy are hardcore narcissistic sociopaths. They both truly believe that they're in the right and the other deserves death or jail time. Its amazing how Flynn makes both Dunnes people you hope make it out and people you hope go to prison. I just wish it was formatted a little more comprehensively.

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tarahux's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was brilliant. It took me a bit to read because I’ve been busy, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even by the time I found out what actually happened, I was still questioning the narratives. Flynn did such a good job at making the characters seem just trustworthy enough while also making you question everything. I thought the writing was brilliant, the plot was planned so well, and the descriptions were also written beautifully.

The only thing I will say is PLEASE check the trigger warnings on this book!

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hatchtag's review against another edition

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I could already tell where it was going, not bad writing but I think just cultural awareness of the story/spoilers. The pacing started to feel a bit slow, figured it would pick up but wasn't feeling it. Most of all...I absolutely hated the characters. I know they are meant to be hateable so good writing (?) But especially on audiobook - and especially all the aggressive "b*tch b*tch b*tch"s from Nick's dad and Nick...it was too much and got harder to stomach than I anticipated. I don't know where the story could have gone that would have pulled me back in and made me glad I finished...but, I did like the author's style. Not the story.

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sonjaswanson's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I will be thinking about this book for a while. I saw the movie in theaters and remember all the feelings I had then. I feel the movie is very accurate to the book. The whole time I was thinking “I wish I could read this blindly” because I know these plot twists would be so good. I love the unreliable narrators. I love super flawed characters. I love the satire and critique for men/women dynamics, true crime in media, and so much more. There is so much to analyze I wish I was reading this with somebody to talk it out. Amazing book, can’t wait to read more from the author.

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vaguely_pink's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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hannahmg's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

0/1 overall
1/2 writing/structure/character creation
1/2 enjoyment

I would not recommend this book.

Overall I did not enjoy this book, the first 250 page were not needed and were poorly written, the last 50 pages were as bad as the first part of the book. I only enjoyed a small snippet of the book. The length of this triller is way to long and unnecessary. I felt like I was reading a first draft of a idea.

The writing was partly smart with good ideas but poorly done, the journal extracts giving us a unreliable pov which was smart, reminded me of Dracula, but this was done in a manner which made it worthless, more dialogue than actually description, this was so unrealistic it was unnecessary to make it seem like a dairy. Nicks pov was closer to a dairy than Amy's own dairy entries. The repetition was unbearable, -yes Nick we get it you have a mistress and she is young, very young, and pretty.
The character creation was immense and well though through, Amy and Nick are both so realistic but fucked up at the same time. This is one of the major reasons it is a two and not a one star review.

I thought there was a lot of unnecessary added details, the level of Misogyny and sexism was not needed and weakly touched on at the end. Specifically the character of Nick's father who has Dementia and becomes extremely misogynistic, with the use of the slur "bitch" in both his speech and Nicks thoughts. Why add this, I just think the book would of been fine without it and it didn't feel like a representation of any sorts but more a tick for the check list and even excusing the behaviour.

I was very disappointed in the trigger warning list i found (Storygraph). Yes it is a thriller, we should expect triggering things but at the end of the day the book should have a page of trigger warnings.

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