I’ve been wondering how to write this review since I started Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn has written a book which is almost impossible to review without giving away major plot points. Just as you think that you have a handle on what’s going on, and who is in the right, another twist comes along and throws everything into disarray again. It’s about the complexity of relationships, and the need for revenge that springs from the hatred caused by a failed marriage. Flynn is a highly intelligent writer, and I’m so envious of her for conceiving this plot!
Without giving anything away, the premise is this. Nick Dunne met Amy Elliott at a party in New York. They were both writers, working for successful magazines, and they hit it off straight away….for an evening. 8 months later, they meet again and this time get married. They are the perfect couple: cool, clever, wealthy and in love. Amy’s parents are the authors of the ‘Amazing Amy’ series of books for children, based on their own daughter, and although Amy is used to being admired, she’s also sick of being bettered by her semi-fictional counterpart. With Nick, she is finally on top.
The novel opens with Nick going downstairs on the morning of their 5th wedding anniversary to find Amy making pancakes for him. Told in the first person, Nick’s narrative makes it clear that he is uneasy about his anniversary, and uncomfortable, but before we are told why, the chapter ends and the narrative switches to Amy’s diary entry for the night she met Nick for the first time: “Tra and la! I am smiling a big adopted orphan smile as I write this”. Something must have gone seriously wrong between the two of them to go from Amy’s ecstatically happy entry to Nick’s uncomfortable avoidance of his wife, but Flynn doesn’t let you know what it is immediately. She teases and tantalises, the narrative alternating between Nick’s present-day narrative and Amy’s diary entries.
By the end of the third chapter, Amy is gone, vanished. Her dress is still on the ironing board, ready to be pressed for their anniversary treasure-hunt, an Elliott, and now Dunne, tradition. It is at this point that the book becomes hard to write about, because almost every chapter contains a twist or a turn, the story snaking around and around until it’s hard to see who is right, or wrong, or where the narrative is going. That isn’t to say that it’s overly complicated or confusing; rather that, to use an over-used phrase, it’s a real page-turner. The story keeps on moving and it’s a hard book to put down, which surprised me because if I came across characters this unbearable in any other book, I’d have probably had to force myself to finish it. Nick and Amy both made me want to throw the book through the window at regular intervals, but they worked in the context of the narrative. Nick’s sister, Margot, is more likeable – she’s funny, intelligent and neurotic. She’s the kind of woman who would probably be described as ‘feisty’, but in a good way. The two laywers, Tanner and Betsy Bolt, add a nice touch of humour with their pretty double act and antics with jelly beans.
If I had a criticism of Gone Girl, it would be that the ending, whilst not an anti-climax, only just works. Flynn makes her protagonists’ actions convincing and in character, but it’s one step away from being ridiculous. That having been said, the whole book is faintly melodramatic so the ending isn’t a big change of tone. I just feel as if Flynn could have taken a different direction with it, and it would have been a little more convincing.
All in all, this is the first thriller in a long time that I’ve had such a hard time putting down. I hated the two main characters and thought that the twists and turns were exhausting but these things worked, in perverse way, to make the novel ultra-readable. I’ll definitely look out for the two previous novels by Flynn, Dark Places and Sharp Objects.
4/5
Published on the 24th May in the UK.
I won an advance proof copy of this novel. The views are all my own and I wasn’t paid for the review.
