30 Apr Grabbed by Gone Girl
One of my dearest friends recommended this novel to me after her book club read it. “You have to read Gone Girl!” Lane enthused. “It’s quite creepy.” Having actually completed the novel now, I couldn’t agree more: it’s creepy alright. Positively laden with plot twists and unexpected turns and gripping scenarios and never-sure who’s being truthful bits, I have to say, I could not put this book down. While I worried it would be too unsettling to read alone at night, it’s not a scary kind of creepy–more a psychological thriller; a disturbing look at love gone wrong.
From the beginning, the book grabs the reader as the stage is set for a mystery. Amy Dunne disappears on the day of her fifth wedding anniversary and her husband, Nick, appears to be the prime suspect. The book opens in Nick’s voice as he retells the day of his wife’s disappearance and the subsequent unraveling of his life as police try to pin him with the crime. Nick’s lack of emotion and odd obsession with the shape of his wife’s head along with his insistence she was a spoiled brat, nearly impossible to live with and entirely impossible to figure out, leaves the reader doubting his innocence.
The reader is doubly unsure about charming, handsome Nick when Amy takes over the telling of the story. From the past perspective of her diary, Amy makes herself out to be a kind, generous, every loving and self sacrificing wife, always there for her cold, difficult husband. Sure the marriage has its difficulties and both unemployed writers are a little depressed, but they love one another…don’t they?
Stay tuned for more tomorrow..