Pages: 560
Read synopsis on Goodreads
Buy the book: Amazon/Audible (this post includes affiliate links)
How refreshing! I know that’s a weird way to start off discussing a book with such a dark storyline, but it is always refreshing to read a book that truly catches me off guard in a good way. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn does just that.
This is a story about a man named Nick (a not-so-perfect husband) whose wife, Amy, goes missing. The media (and everyone else) is infatuated with the story because Nick and Amy are both great looking New Yorkers who moved to Nick’s hometown in Missouri to take care of his dying mother and elderly father. Amy, for her part, is the inspiration for a three-decade popular book series named Amazing Amy that an entire generation grew up with. Like their story, this book is something that you latch onto and take off running with once you catch a whiff of the the first few pages.
Of course, all signs point to Nick (it’s on the jacket, so I can say that), and the book fluctuates from his narration to that of Amy’s. Sounds predictable, right? Right. But then comes Part Two. Now, I won’t go into any details here, but I will say, WHOA! I really thought I had it all figured out. I’m usually pretty adept at unravelling a story about halfway through (I’m not sure whether that means I’m great with clues or that the authors are not…) but I was completely wrong. Even the bits that I had predicted correctly didn’t play out the way that I had expected.
This book is full of twists and turns that you can actually follow and doesn’t leave any loose ends, which is becoming harder and harder to find in a book nowadays. So many books in recent years leave wide open gaps where a storyline should be and it was refreshing (like I said, it was an appropriate word). I don’t generally give star ratings because I think people, for the most part, ignore them, but this one deserves 5!
As a side note, I joined Gillian Flynn for a live chat hosted by Crown Publishing and she is just a delight!