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A review by njdarkish
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
2.0
It's kind of hard to give this book a rating.
There are parts of this book that I love: the writing style was very compelling and pulled me in then pulled me through. I was immediately interested from the way that Flynn wrote the characters. I was genuinely surprised at some of the twists, particularly enjoying the twist at about the book's halfway point. I felt that the story was a very compelling dark, with breaks for humor or positivity placed expertly where needed.
There is also things about this book that I don't like. Like the ending. [spoilers] I felt that the idea of Amy coming back so she could essentially be a dominating, controlling monster was a huge step backward for the character. I didn't particularly love her character arc-- you can't help but enjoy some aspects of her cleverness, but you definitely don't like her or Nick as the book progresses-- and choosing to go back so she can force him to be the false version of himself that he was when they met just felt stupid to me. The fact that Nick goes along with it so he can play her game even better than she does-- also phenomenally stupid. And that they have a baby and play perfect family, the end? Ugh. [/spoilers] I know you're not exactly supposed to like either of these characters, but I didn't like the way they were awful in many pretty stereotypical ways-- [spoilers] like Nick being an emotionless cheating (and it's a professor/college student relationship? really?) douchebag, or Amy being the sadistic, manipulative beotch who gets her way, no matter who it hurts[/spoilers]. I know that in writing you have to be true to your characters when telling the story, but it just felt like the worldview being shown in the books was very much a caricature of negative gender stereotypes-- and that is how everybody is, they just fake being different. To me, a reader of either gender can walk away from the book feeling a little insulted. Many of the big revelations in the books were pretty easy to figure out once you got a feel for the characters' flaws and ruined some of the big pivots in the story.
So, ultimately, I feel like this story does a good job of Flynn's skill with prose and making a story dark, it wasn't the best feat of storytelling. I think I'll probably pick up another of her books in the future, but I'm not going to jump to recommending this one to anybody and I'm not going to go see the movie.
There are parts of this book that I love: the writing style was very compelling and pulled me in then pulled me through. I was immediately interested from the way that Flynn wrote the characters. I was genuinely surprised at some of the twists, particularly enjoying the twist at about the book's halfway point. I felt that the story was a very compelling dark, with breaks for humor or positivity placed expertly where needed.
There is also things about this book that I don't like. Like the ending. [spoilers] I felt that the idea of Amy coming back so she could essentially be a dominating, controlling monster was a huge step backward for the character. I didn't particularly love her character arc-- you can't help but enjoy some aspects of her cleverness, but you definitely don't like her or Nick as the book progresses-- and choosing to go back so she can force him to be the false version of himself that he was when they met just felt stupid to me. The fact that Nick goes along with it so he can play her game even better than she does-- also phenomenally stupid. And that they have a baby and play perfect family, the end? Ugh. [/spoilers] I know you're not exactly supposed to like either of these characters, but I didn't like the way they were awful in many pretty stereotypical ways-- [spoilers] like Nick being an emotionless cheating (and it's a professor/college student relationship? really?) douchebag, or Amy being the sadistic, manipulative beotch who gets her way, no matter who it hurts[/spoilers]. I know that in writing you have to be true to your characters when telling the story, but it just felt like the worldview being shown in the books was very much a caricature of negative gender stereotypes-- and that is how everybody is, they just fake being different. To me, a reader of either gender can walk away from the book feeling a little insulted. Many of the big revelations in the books were pretty easy to figure out once you got a feel for the characters' flaws and ruined some of the big pivots in the story.
So, ultimately, I feel like this story does a good job of Flynn's skill with prose and making a story dark, it wasn't the best feat of storytelling. I think I'll probably pick up another of her books in the future, but I'm not going to jump to recommending this one to anybody and I'm not going to go see the movie.