Book 7 Review: Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn

"I was so twitchy with suspense at one point in the novel I Googled 'Who Killed Amy, Gone Girl'. Those who have read the novel feel free to laugh at me now."

My 7^th book this year was the Novel ‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn. This is a novel full of suspense, a mix of who-done-it and fantastically flawed characters. I try and make all my reviews spoiler-free, and this novel is extremely hard to review without giving away the major plot twists and turns. But I promise this will be as spoiler free as possible. 

I enjoyed reading the book, but I discovered while reading this that I have a zero ability to cope with suspense, and this book is certainly full of it. As a reader you have no idea of how the story will resolve itself, or indeed if the complicated lives of its characters can ever be resolved happily.

 

Gone Girl book cover

 

The novel follows lovely married couple Nick and Amy as they celebrate their  5^th wedding anniversary. Nick leaves for work and by the end of the day Amy is missing and as a reader you are strapped in for a ride that doesn’t stop until about 2 days after you have finished reading and mentally processing this novel. The novel alternates between the perspectives of Nick and Amy as right from the get-go you start to realise that their relationship is not all roses and sunshine. We follow Nick as he struggles to piece together his wife’s disappearance, and as the evidence slowly begins to stack up against him.

I am certainly feeling the pressure to make this a good review because Gone Girl is definitely the book of the moment. It is a huge bestseller and is soon to be made into a movie with Ben Affleck. It has been the first time that I have been tempted to read other reviews before writing my own, simply to find a way to review this book without giving it all away.

 

 

As a reader, I was shocked when I found that both Nick and Amy were not reliable narrators. I was used to a nice, straightforward relationship between a reader and a main character. As a reader of a novel written in first person I always go in with the naïve assumption that the narrator and I have an open relationship. It is apparently not the case in this novel and I was a little bit shocked. I suppose it wouldn’t be a very good suspense novel without some suspense and plot twists and turns (fancy that!) and sure enough Flynn delivers on both fronts. If you are feeling a little outraged that I gave this away, don't worry, it is one of the smallest plot twists, a mere wrinkle in the  fabric of the novel.

 

My scribbles as I tried to figure out how to review Gone Girl

 

 

The Good Bits

Flynn's writing is sharp, darkly humorous and she gets the voices of Nick and Amy spot-on. Nick constantly struggles to portray himself as a grieving husband, when the reality of his relationship with his missing wife is far from straightforward. You literally groan as Nick smiles automatically to a mob of media cameras instead of breaking down in tears as one would expect a worried husband to do. You feel just as tied up as Nick and Amy are in their complicated lives, so convincing is Flynn's writing. This makes it even more shocking when you realise that they are not the most reliable narrators.

 

Gone Girl also delves into some interesting commentary on how the Media reports on missing women. Families, Husbands, Friends and Neighbours are all expected to conform to their roles, to grieve publically and properly, to swear to find their missing loved one, to cry and sob for the flashing bulbs and watching lenses. The power of public opinion and the media mob once someone does not play their role properly is made fully apparent in this Novel, and will make anyone question their own perceptions when reading about or watching real life cases of disappearances or murders. The current media commentary on the Oscar Pistorius trial is tinged with the exact same themes raised by Flynn in Gone Girl. Listening to daytime TV hosts talk about how he definitely did/didn't murder his girlfriend makes you realise that Flynn's observations on the media coverage of missing/murdered women are spot on.

 

The Not So Good Bits

I was uneasy, tense and on edge when reading this book. Which I imagine is precisely how Flynn wants her readers to feel, but something I am not used to as I have not read a triller in a long time. This year is about reading outside my comfort zone and this book certainly booted me out. I was so twitchy with suspense at one point  early on in the novel I Googled 'Who Killed Amy, Gone Girl'. Those who have read the novel feel free to laugh at me now.

 

The Rating

4 out of 5 missing wives

 

The Next Book

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri, a novel about two brothers growing up in India in the 1970's, a time a great political turbulence for India.

 

 

 

 

If anyone wants to read a much more intelligent review of Gone Girl that delves deeper into the concepts of identity, gender roles and reality read the Piratess's Tumblr post about Gone Girl. Piratess is 'the cool girl' without even trying.

 

Book 1 Review: The Husband's Secret- Liane Moriarty

"Not just a bunch of middle aged women talking
about their husbands"

My first book of my 52 books in 52 weeks challenge is The Husband's Secret By Liane Moriarty. The novel tracks the impact of one tragic instant through the lives of three families irrevocably tied together from that moment on. In the novel, the protagonist Celia Fitzpatrick’s understanding of her comfortable and structured world is thrown into turmoil when she discovers a letter written from her husband to be opened upon his death. The letter unearths a horrible secret from his past which not only affects Celia’s family, but two other families from their small Sydney Catholic school community. It has been an easy novel to start my book reviews with and was overall an enjoyable, but not overly challenging read.

At the beginning of this novel I wasn’t glued to every word and wasn't desperate to read on. However Moriarty’s storytelling has a way of drawing you in. I was unimpressed and skeptical even after the big reveal of the letter (I called it a holiday read in my last post)
yet by the end I was easily caught up as the pace of the novel sped towards a much anticipated climax.

At the beginning, the novel mostly felt like a bunch of middle aged women sitting around talking about their husbands and children.

(Yep, this is what I imagined)

However I soon realised this novel is about much more. It raises serious questions of whether justice for past crimes can ever be achieved. The novel makes you question if one person’s life can be equal to that of another and whether a lifetime of good deeds ever absolve one from the crimes of the past. It shows how hard it is to truly know those you are closest to and how easily the sense of stability and normality in our lives can disintegrate. 

On a less serious note, this novel was set in Sydney’s North, my hometown. It is quite a refreshing change to read about a character rushing down a street that I drive down daily.

(This one to be precise)

Great novels can transport you anywhere in the world with a few carefully selected adjectives. It is a different experience entirely being transported by Moriarty, only ten minutes up the road.

This made me think. I realised that novels don’t have to be placed in historically significant times or exotic locations to make an impact. In fact I would contend it is harder to impress an audience when your novel is centered on the everyday and the mundane; the picking up and dropping off of children, the amount of butter left in your fridge, the Easter Hat Parade at the local school. Moriarty does an excellent job of showing how emotional turmoil and life changing revelations occur in everyday life, in the least glamorous of places and that people have to cope with these changes all while trying to maintain a semblance of normality.  

Good bits

It was a good reminder that I should read more Australian literature. I’ll be making sure to include more Australian books in my reading list this year.

The plot is interesting and unexpected. As it progresses Moriarty builds a palpable sense of foreboding as the plot progresses as you feel that sooner or later past crimes must be paid for.

It had an epilogue! Not many serious novels have epilogues, perhaps because its not cool among writer folk. It was nice to have a more solid sense of conclusion that is often missing from novels what leave you guessing at the end.

Not so good bits
I felt like I would have enjoyed this more if I was a mother, or perhaps a Catholic. Some of the biggest themes in the novel centre on children and the concept of ‘sin’. Having neither children nor ever sinned I couldn’t possibly relate.

Thanks Clueless

Joking aside it did feel like the book was tailored to a specific audience that I wasn't a part of and although this feeling abated as the novel progressed, it never quite went away.

The novel was not life changing for me. It didn’t force me to open my eyes to anything new or unexpected. I did end up liking the novel more than I expected to but overall it felt a bit ‘soft’ for me.
 

It had an epilogue. Yeah I did say it was one of the good bits but it did again leave me feeling the ending was a bit ‘soft’, as if the author wanted to give us all a happy ending rather than a kick in the guts to finish. Perhaps a kick in the guts is what all the cool writers are doing these days.

Quotes that made me think

"What can you say or do to make up for a horrible incident? The words ‘I’m sorry’ felt like an insult. You said ‘I’m sorry’ when you bumped against someone’s supermarket trolley. There needed to be bigger words."

Rating

Three and a Half out of Five well-buttered hot cross buns 

The next book
Book number two will be 'Room' by Emma Donoghue as suggested by Cat. It has been sitting ignored halfway down the list of books on my Kindle for about a year now so time to get reading! 

Like the sound of the book? Buy it here on Amazon or at your local bookstore. 

Please let me know what you thought of my review below please. Its my first time doing this since a year five book report so I am feeling rusty!  Agree with me? Think I'm spouting a load of rubbish? Let me know :)