"Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn is an amazingly written story about a husband and
wife, their relationship, their struggles with self-discovery both individually
and as a couple, and a missing person case.
I’m afraid to mention much more about the plot because it’s a mystery
and I don’t want to give anything away.
The writing, the butter, is what makes this story, the
bread, captivating. Even though the
bread is moldy and leaves a bad, rotten taste in your mouth at times, the
butter makes it worth continuing. And
yet you know if you continue eating you will be sick, continue reading and you
won’t trust humanity. Flynn writes from both Nick’s point of view and Amy’s
point of view, so that the reader feels that there is a complete picture, two
sides of the same story. I was skeptical
at how this would work for a mystery book, but because of that skepticism, I
think that it strengthened the mystery and my longing to understand each
character and their parts in the events that transpired.
From Amy’s journal about her parents - “They have no harsh
edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like
conjoined jellyfish-expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each
other’s spaces liquidly.”
From Amy’s journal about her husband – “Nick responds to
adoration. I just wish it felt more
equal. My brain is so busy with Nick thoughts, it’s a swarm inside my head
Nicknicknicknicknick! And when I picture his mind, I hear my name as a shy
crystal ping that occurs once, maybe twice, a day and quickly subsides. I just wish he thought about me as much as I
do him.”
The imagery that each of Amy’s journal entries create is
brilliant. The reader can picture the
events the setting and the people exactly as Amy pictured them. This can create an alliance between the
reader and Amy until the next chapter when the author presents Nick’s thoughts.
From Nick’s thoughts – “When I think of my wife, I always think
of her head. The shape of it, to begin with. The
very first time I saw her, it was the back of the head I saw, and there was
something lovely about it, the angles of it. Like a shiny, hard corn kernel or
a riverbed fossil. She had what the Victorians would call a finely shaped head.”
Also from Nick’s thoughts “Go's voice was warm and crinkly even as she gave this
cold news: Our indomitable mother was dying. Our dad was nearly gone—his
(nasty) mind, his (miserable) heart, both murky as he meandered toward the
great gray beyond. But it looked like our mother would beat him there.”
The description presented in
Nick’s thoughts much like the imagery in Amy’s journal provide facts, at least
facts as seen by Nick, describing what the reader is lead to believe is the
same story. These facts appear slowly in
Nick’s chapters of thoughts and experiences as the story unfolds a depiction of
two very lost people.
While the book is disturbing
at best, it is still a bread and butter book as both the story and the language
are intriguing and captivating. I recommend reading it over watching the
movie. While the movie is equally if not
more disturbing because of the visual component, the imagery and the
description are not as vivid and easily captured on screen. Word of warning – the movie is not a date
movie not matter what you might hear, but it shouldn’t be watched alone either.
On that dire note – happy reading!
