Gone Girl: Book Review

I just finished reading Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. Finally, finally, after countless years, I have come around to reading this book. This is the first time, and I have never seen the movie, even. I was spoiled on the major twist of the story, so I kept putting both of them off. Now, that said, I think the twist would have been quite obvious on a meta-level if only because I've read Flynn's two other novels—admittedly, she is a bit of a one trick pony. The good thing is that my assumptions about the context of the major twist were actually wrong, so there were a lot of unexpected things in this novel. It was a wild ride, to be sure.

This book apparently kickstarted the domestic thriller craze that is now commonplace today. At the very least, it came at the very beginning of the trend. It begins with Nick Dunne, a very normal husband, waking on his fifth anniversary to speak with his wife, Amy. Later in the day, he returns home to learn that his wife is nowhere to be found. He calls the police and reports her missing, knowing the whole time that husbands are always the first to be suspected. But what can he do? As the secrets unfold, and the suspicion grows, Nick begins to realize that there might be more to his wife's disappearance than he could have possibly guessed.

As usual, with thrillers, I think you should go into them with as little info as possible. I don't even read the back of the books, let alone watch non-spoler reviews. So, I won't hold back on spoilers.

Let's get started.

Story Structure

I

Of course, I'll want to talk about the story structure of this book, as I thought it was one of the more interesting parts of the book. We will start out with the first half. We are treated to an oscillating pair of perspectives. We start with Nick Dunne and his troubles, and then switch over to a diary entry of Amy Dunne. We learn that Amy has gone missing through Nick's perspective, and then we see from Amy's diary entries, which are conspicuously dated back to when they first met, about her life and developing relationship with Nick. What unravels is essentially a horror show. You learn that Amy and Nick's relationship has turned sour, that he has been cheating, and you even learn that Nick had been physically aggressive with her; she bought a gun to keep herself safe from him. This information is scattered between the two perspectives. Nick looks more guilty by the minute, less likeable by the minute, and Amy ever more likeable.

The problem is that Nick didn't kill her.

The halfway point changes everything. The story structure changes. We are dropped from the diary entries that we saw Amy from before and we are suddenly plunged into Amy's actual perspective. In other words, Amy is actually alive. This is what I was spoiled on. To be fair, I probably would have guessed this without the spoiler, and I even knew this going in. Flynn has one card to play. I've read her other two books, so I know what she is all about. More significantly, the twist happened around the halfway point of the story, so it left things up in the air. All I had heard about the movie/book was that the wife was behind it all, along with an image of her driving away with the top down. The image I had conjured up was this as the end of the story. Nick is hoisted off to prison, and she is driving off into the sunset. Instead, I was left guessing.

Placing the reader into the head of Amy, rather than leaving them to read the diary entries, completely reorients the reader's perspective of the character in their mind. As a second order effect, it reorients their understanding of what happened. The fact that her story was told through diary entries in the beginning makes you realize that it can all be reinterpreted. At first, you think it is because she was killed. Now, you learn it's because she wrote a fake diary that was intended to frame her husband. All of the strange questions that began to pop up at the beginning of the book start to fall in place. Why does Nick look guilty as hell, despite us being in his head and knowing otherwise? Flynn's use of the diary entries was perfect, namely through the use of multiple interpretations, and also through the plot relevance, once the police got their hands onto the diary later in the story.

II

I do have some criticisms of how Flynn used character perspective, however. This was not through diary entries, though. I did not like the fact that she used first person perspective for both Nick and Amy. This allowed her to engage in too much lazy info dumping in places, where I thought she could spread some of the information out through the chapters. One of the better examples of this was when the actual reveal came. I can only paraphrase, but I swear there were some lines like, "Yes, I'm Amy. The real Amy." The rest of the chapter is her quite literally explaining to the reader how she invented "diary Amy" as a part of her plan. It was all as if she were speaking to the reader, and it turned me off. Flynn should have written in third person-limited and let the differences between real Amy and diary Amy show, rather than just info-dumping them all on the reader. I think the story would have been a lot more interesting, as a result. I get that this is in the pop fiction market, but it's still something that could not help but notice and now comment on.

The problem runs a little deeper than the superficial, as well. The first person perspective usually implies that the story has been written down, especially if there is a lot of info-dumping. The fact that we had first person narratives, implying a written narrative, woven alongside a series of diary entries, was just structurally confusing. I think this goes beyond just switching all of the "I's" in the narrative to "he/she." First person tends to lend itself to info dumps and introspection in ways that other perspectives do not. As I mentioned, I think the info dumping was a problem.

Margo

One thing that I want to comment on is the relationship between Nick and his twin sister Go. This relationship serves an important narrative purpose in that it shows the impact that Amy's actions have on Nick. It is not just material, but also spiritual. They are presented as joined at the hip, essentially knowing how the other thinks on a fundamental level. But we also see this break down over the course of this novel in two key ways. First, we see Nick has lied to her about his affair. I think this is important to note, because he is the one who actually starts the process. You can blame Amy for really damaging things, and she really brings in the most powerful blow, but Nick lays the groundwork. Second, we see Go's instinctual response when Nick takes her out to the shed behind her house. He thinks she will understand what he is doing; that he is exposing Amy's scheme. Instead, she initially assumes that he is confessing to her.

His connection to Go represents something larger, I think. It shows that Amy has managed to cut deeper into Nick, to such a point that even his most human connections have begun to fray. All the same, it does not work, in the end.

(A side note: I watched the movie after writing this, and Flynn removed the second thing from the script! I know she wrote the movie script, but it was disappointing, having this removed. I could see that she wanted to have the movie streamlined, so I understand the change, but still.)

Amy's Schemes

One thing I liked about the portrayal of Amy's schemes is that while they were elaborate and even believable, they also fell through in ways that were revealing and even funny. She started out thinking she would just kill herself by the end of it, which is just lunacy. That alone says something about her obsession. She didn't want to get away from Nick. She wanted to destroy him. She was willing to kill herself for it. Yet, she predictably decides that death isn't the ideal thing to do, so she tries to make a life for herself. But she only has ten thousand dollars. Then she gets robbed. And when she is made a slave of a man who ostensibly only wants to protect her, she is at her most desperate. When Nick makes his fake appeals to her, trying to lure her back home, he imagines her living it up somewhere on the beach, but this is far from what it is. When she finally decides that he really does want her back, the reader readily understands just how insane this woman is.

Another subtle touch is when she is talking to another woman while undercover, and this woman has a negative opinion of Amy through all the press coverage. It shows how even through all the scheming, you can't control the attitudes of everyone.

Theme

The idea that Nick and Amy are not who they pretend to be is the central theme to this story. And I think the ending of the book leans into this idea in the perfect way. We learn that they are essentially pretending to be different people in order to be in love, and after that fails catastrophically, leading to the plot of this story, we think they are paying the price for living their lie. But the ending turns all of that on its head by showing that they cannot escape one another. They continue to live a lie and continue their relationship despite everything. It's insane, but it actually keeps with the theme. It's crazy, but it's consistent.

Truth Does Not Triumph

One thing that I hate in fiction is when the author assumes that the truth is inherently believable. I continually come back to the scene in The Dark Knight Rises when Bane exposes the secret about Harvey Dent. This scene (and movie) is often criticized because we never see what the wider city's reaction to this is. I have a further criticism. Why should anyone believe Bane in the first place? What is preventing him from lying? I get that he is telling the truth. But from the perspective of the wider city, what would they know about that? Another more laughable example would be from the second Transformers movie. The secret of the Transformers is exposed with a video of the Fallen speaking to the people of the world. Apparently, this mike drop moment was the moment the whole world realized, not when their cities were being destroyed beforehand. As before, what the Fallen is saying is true, but there is no sense of perspective. What does it look like from the perspective of the average person? They would probably just assume it's an advertisement for a movie. A reverse War of the Worlds situation.

In this book, Flynn avoids this pitfall by understanding the difference between narrative and truth. Nick's lawyer understands from the very outset that the truth of Amy's scheme is far too complex, evidentially speaking. They would never be able to convince a jury of what happened. At one point, the lawyer even says that his defense in court would probably ignore the Amy frame narrative entirely, even if they could find the evidence. Frankly speaking, this is the ultimate blackpill. The evidence was so personal, I was constantly wondering whether the lawyer even believed it.

Ending

I did not see the ending coming at all. I was actually a bit unnerved by it, which is weird. I think this is because it doesn't really resolve until the final few chapters. You think it might go one way, until it suddenly swings the other. What makes it so twisted, and even hilarious, is that it makes Amy's deranged conclusions upon running back home to her husband accurate. She was actually right. Nick actually does start to "love" her again, if you can call it love. And you remember that most of your knowledge of their past is through the diary entries, so how much of this is just more of the same? To what extent is Nick able to fight back? These are open questions with suggested answers.

Yet, the fact that they are back together despite everything is something I could never have guessed.

Conclusion

Overall, this book took me for a ride. I think I will give it a 7.5/10.

Video: https://youtu.be/KZAk5GOt2Fs