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Friday 28 December 2012

{review} Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn



Hardcover, 419 pages
Published May 24th 2012 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN 0297859382 (ISBN13: 9780297859383)


On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?


I'm sending 2012 out with a bang.  And a review of the best book I read this year.  

2012 was ... hard.  There's a million more words that I could use to describe it (intense, emotional, exhausting, terrifying, heartbreaking ... ), but hard really sums it up best.  I spent the first bit of 2012 living in the guest room of my parents cabin in the woods, reeling from a divorce a few months prior that included a restraining order and extreme and utter heartbreak.  

You know your life has gone to shit when living in your parents dining room/spare room at 31 years old is actually comforting.  

After finding some energy and strength (mostly from the bottom of a bottle), I moved to a new city to start my life over.  It was hard.  Life is hard.  It's getting much better, slowly, but yo, divorce sucks ass.

Luckily, while my marriage wasn't the greatest, and my year wasn't so spectacular, it wasn't nearly as bad as Amy & Nick's marriage in Gone Girl.  And my 2012 doesn't even compete with the few months that this book covers in their life.

I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but this book was AMAZING.  The first few chapters of a seemingly common murder mystery in no way prepared me for what was to come.  I found myself switching sides often, rooting for each character at some point.  So many times I had to put the book down and text the Semi-BFF things like "WTF!!"  and "OMG THIS BOOK IS BLOWING MY MIND!", making sure to keep my exclamations very generic since she was waiting for me to finish my copy before reading.   

FYI - talking about how and why a book is blowing your mind without giving the twist away is hard.  So just fucking read this book, and be thankful that your 2012 was probably better than mine.  And Nick & Amy's.