Gillian Flynn

Julia Whelan

Kirby Heyborne

A Novel

Gone Girl

For use in schools and libraries only. When a woman goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, her diary reveals hidden turmoil in her marriage, while her husband, desperate to clear himself of suspicion, realizes that something more disturbing than murder may have occurred.

Steffi'sBookShelve

Love is the world’s infinite mutability; Lies, hatred, murder even, are all knit up in it; it is the inevitable blossoming of its opposites, a magnificent, rose smelling faintly of blood.

This is heartbreaking. A spouse unable to picture you as anything but the worst version of yourself no matter how much effort you put in to counter this.

Paige

Sometimes I feel like Nick has decided on a version of me that doesn't exist. Since we've moved here, I've done girls' nights out and charity walks, I've cooked casseroles for his dad and helped sell tickets for raffles. I tapped the last of my money to give to Nick and Go so they could buy the bar they've always wanted, and I even put the check inside a card shaped like a mug of beer — 

— and Nick just gave a flat begrudging thanks. I don't know what to do. I'm trying.

It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.

Jaden

Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl.

High Fidelity

We’ve never had a conversation about my paranoia, because we’re pretending to be in love and I’m pretending not to be frightened of her.

She is reading The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. A sci-fi girl. Abused women like escapism, of course.

 Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you?

I know this sounds the stuff of moony teenage girls, but I’ve been tracking Nick’s moods. Toward me. Just to make sure I’m not crazy. I’ve got a calendar, and I put hearts on any day Nick seems to love me again, and black squares when he doesn’t. The past year was all black squares, pretty much.

My husband is the most loyal man on the planet until he’s not.

I have never been a nag. I have always been rather proud of my un-nagginess. So it pisses me off, that Nick is forcing me to nag. I am willing to live with a certain amount of sloppiness, of laziness, of the lackadaisical life. I realize that I am more type A than Nick, and I try to be careful not to inflict my neat-freaky, to-do-list nature on him.

Click. You just know each other. All of a sudden you see reading in bed and waffles on Sunday and laughing at nothing and his mouth on yours. And it’s so far beyond fine that you know you can never go back to fine. That fast. You think: Oh, here is the rest of my life. It’s finally arrived.

It’s the female pissing contest – as we swan around our book clubs and our cocktail hours, there are few things women love more than being able to detail the sacrifices our men make for us. A call-and-response, the response being: ‘Ohhh, that’s so sweet.’

But there’s no app for a bourbon buzz on a warm day in a cool, dark bar. The world will always want a drink.

I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?

I’ve suffered betrayal with all five senses. For over a year.

Steph Lodico

I am a little too much, and he is a little too little. I am a thornbush, bristling from the overattention of my parents, and he is a man of a million little fatherly stab wounds, and my thorns fit perfectly into them.

raia

Hell, at this point, I can’t imagine my story without Amy. She is my forever antagonist.

Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you? So that’s how the hating first began. I’ve thought about this a lot, and that’s where it started, I think.

Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

But he didn’t love me, me. Nick loved a girl who doesn’t exist. I was pretending, the way I often did, pretending to have a personality. I can’t help it, it’s what I’ve always done: The way some women change fashion regularly, I change personalities. 

Well there are all kinds of men, his most damning phrase, the second half left unsaid, and you are the wrong kind.

Ella Bruggink

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much!

Nova

3.5

amy is delusional. for someone who's incredibly smart, she's so easily deluded into believing what she wants. a really interesting character. it wasn't grappling enough that i need to keep reading it in one sitting, but it still made a pretty intense read. i really liked the dictions used. 

also, just like many people have said in their reviews: don't get married.

Lindy

When a woman goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, her diary reveals hidden turmoil in her marriage, while her husband, desperate to clear himself of suspicion, realizes that something more disturbing than murder may have occurred.

Bella Baxter

Y'know, it's been a VERY long time and I mean very (we're talking about since HP Book 6 when I was in middle school-currently two years out of college) that I've stayed up at night to read and this book just blew me away. Plot twists out of nowhere, unbelievable deception, crafty characters....I looked forward to it every night. I think I've been inducted into the thriller genre and it's all thanks to this book.

Sorin

Loved the ending. Although I feel sorry for Nick that he has to stay with Amy, they are both terrible people who deserve to make each other miserable for the rest of their lives. 

Emma Miller

Tobias V. Langhoff

I will review this novel in the way that one of its main characters wants me to:
‘It’s good.’ She chirps the last bit as if that were all to say about a book: It’s good or it’s bad. I liked it or I didn’t. No discussion of the writing, the themes, the nuances, the structures. Just good or bad. Like a hot dog.
All right. Gone Girl is pretty good.

The writing is fine and reminded me of Nick Hornby. I’m probably alone in this, but I felt that the first half of the book read a bit like a crime version of one of my favorite books, High Fidelity. The protagonists are also basically the same characters; a lovable and self-deprecating asshole who loses his girl and as a result re-examines his fear of commitment and tendency to act on his emotions.

To speak of the themes I must spoil the plot. I realized early on that there would be a plot twist, as everyone knows by now, but I was actually convinced that the twist that was foreshadowed was different, darker and more sinister than the actual twist. Because I don’t have any other place to share the theories I formed while reading, I’ll do it here:

(view spoiler)[Nick considered that Amy wanted to be found, and I thought the treasure hunt was a race to find her, because she had hidden herself. (That last part turned out to be true, of course.) I first believed that Nick would be too late, and find her hidden in some place significant in their relationship that he had forgotten, and that she would be lying there, dead. Reaffirming this theory was the doormat outside their house with the words “All are friends who enter here”; nobody had broken in. That theory would have worked if Amy was a friend to Nick.

After the blood was found in the kitchen, and her “pregnancy” was revealed, I thought she had possibly cut the fetus out of her womb there, and that the dead baby would be waiting in the wooden crib that was one of the clues. That would have been dark indeed.

As it stands, however, the first half of the novel simply plays with the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” trope, and the twist deconstructs it, which brings us neatly to the structure of the book. (hide spoiler)]

Structure-wise, the book has chapters that alternate between first person point of views from the two highly unreliable narrators, both of whom clearly suffer from some mental issues, perhaps sociopathy and narcissism. The most interesting part of the book is watching the “game” between these two minds unfold.

Following the twist, however, I felt a little let down by the rest of the book. Events unfolded at a more rapid pace, less akin to the mysterious feel of the first part. A lot of character development (especially of secondary characters) was tossed aside for the quick and, to me, slightly unsatisfying and predictable ending.

I liked the book, but after finishing it I felt much as I do after having ravenously eaten a regular old hot dog on an empty stomach.

This book was great, I hated EVERYONE in it. Except you, Bleecker. You cool.

Also, I am never getting married, ever.

Saw the movie first. Book was just as phenomenal 

Ry J-W

Alecx Motus

Loved loved loved this book. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and I found it so hard to put down. I missed a few bus stops on my way to work because of this book. The twist and turns were so unpredictable that I couldn't even tell if they were real. Although I have to say I was hoping for a little more for the ending. It left me hanging and needing more from Nick and Amy, and not in a cliff hanger kind of way. It felt a lot like there was no closure to the book. Regardless of how I felt about the ending, absolutely loved it!

Jazz

envie,

whew ! i got sorta addicted and finished faster than i intended to, but ohhmygod it is like intoxicatingly better than the movie and i think the fact it centers both their personal voices rather than the mystery itself (like the movie does) fits the story so much better. and jeez they really do deserve each other (though amy is arguably worse). 

farrr from "good for her" media.

anita

la primera mitad del libro boring af, no necesitaba más de 300 páginas, y la narracion a veces es muy simple, no sé si es un 3.5 o un 4 porque me gustó mucho la personalidad bien marcada de los personajes y que se distinguía la diferencia entre Amy y Nick. digamos que de la página 200 para delante empecé a sentir que sí me atrapaba la historia, una vez que Diary Amy se había callado porfin 🙏

maddie

this book... i honestly have no words to describe this. everything was so unexpected and my brain has basically turned into mush. it was so insane but in a very very good way!!

On the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick's wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren't his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what did really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?

lexie

isa/bella

Gwyn Dill

This book was engaging right up until the end where it lost me. No likable characters, no satisfying ending. Very depressing.

charlotte brand

Lila R E

girlboss 😍 gaslight 😳 gatekeep 😏

rakshu

400 Seiten lang die Welt aus der Sicht zweier echt kranken Süßmausis zu erleben ist verstörend, aber die vielen Witze waren es wert. Kannte leider den größten Plottwist durch Dylan is in trouble schon, war dennoch eine wilde Erfahrung. Super Schreibstil, ausgeklügelter Plot, nur den Sinn des Buches habe ich beim letzten Satz hinterfragt.

Leon

Aine Meehan

Very enjoyable- one of those you read in 2 days because you have to find out what happened. I really enjoyed the characters. I had read mixed reviews and so didn't know what to expect, but it's really worth reading.

Melissa Palmer

Book #41 Read in 2013
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I do not think I have ever read a book that had as main characters such unlikable people as this book did; Nick and Amy are nasty. That being said, this book was like a train wreck and I could not look away; I had to keep reading to find out what happened. On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing. Shortly thereafter, the police and the media are looking at Nick as the person who made Amy disappear. He had cheated on her, emotionally withdrawn from her and, according to Amy's found diary, physically abused her at times. But did Nick really kill her?

This book had tons of twists and turns to keep readers engaged. I was rooting for both Nick and Amy to get their just desserts. This was a good mystery and I recommend it. It seems to be one of those books that people either love or hate; I was more on the love side.

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Gone Girl A Novel

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