Gone Girl reviewed by Wendy Simpson

A review of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is first and foremost a good story. I was hooked from page one. Nick and Amy Dunne are a New York “golden couple”. Handsome, intelligent, successful, and at the outset very much in love. The economic downturn changes all this, first Nick and then Amy lose their jobs, finances become difficult, and when Nick’s family has medical problems, they move back to his midwest home to help. Amy goes missing, Nick is suspected and the plot intensifies with all sorts of unexpected twists and turns. At the beginning the author alternates by chapter between being Nick and being Amy, writing in the first person. Her style changes in each case as she becomes the person she is in the chapter.

There is an underlying philosophical theme, how much of what happens is due to differences in their backgrounds, how much of character in inherent, how much due to environment. Are there good people and bad people. Does evil exist. The protagonists are unsympathetic as are most of the characters in the book.

For me the story went on too long – the twists and turns that fascinated at the beginning became “more of the same” and I would have preferred an earlier ending leaving the reader with more unanswered questions. Despite that, I found it to be a stimulating read and shall certainly try more Gillian Flynn.