Monday, September 29, 2014

Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Title: Gone Girl
Author: Gillian Flynn
Genre: Mystery, suspense
Pages: 419
Published: 2012

A LOT of our staff members have read Gone Girl since its release in 2012. With all the hold requests coming in for the book, we were all pretty curious. I have to tell you, our staff is very split on this book! A few of us (such as myself, Stephanie) absolutely LOVED it. A few of the staff absolutely hated it. A few of the staff couldn't even finish it. Below are my personal thoughts about the book which I reviewed on my own blog last week:

Let me just be real here and say that I was pretty darn tired last week. And why was that? Because of Gone Girl! I had WAY too many late nights reading, staying up way past my bedtime racing through this book until I literally could not keep my eyes open any longer. This book is crazy in the best way possible and I’m SO glad it was my book club pick for the month, finally prompting me to pick it up.

So what’s the story? It’s a big old mystery surrounding the disappearance of Amy Dunne on her and Nick’s five year wedding anniversary. Just like that, she is gone from their home and no one knows where she is. After unsuccessful attempts to find her, Nick’s odd behavior and the strange crime scene in the house make him the prime and only suspect in the case. Through multiple narrations (Nick’s point of view as well as Amy’s diary entries), the whole twisted story is eventually revealed.

Okay, this book REALLY lived up to the hype for me. I know it tends to be either a love it or hate it kind of book with no real in-between on how people feel. I obviously am in the LOVED IT party. It was an amazing mystery that kept getting stranger and darker as the story progressed. The reader really has no clue whether or not it was Nick or someone else for a huge portion of the story, and Flynn manages to make the mystery incredibly hard to solve and unravel. The characters were not at all transparent, and nothing is given away until Flynn wants you to know. I don’t want to say much about the character’s personalities, because I don’t want to reveal anything, but they will leave you in shock at every twist and turn.

While I know many people hate this book simply because they hate the characters, I’d have to disagree. You can like a book without liking the characters, especially if the author created them that way on purpose, which obviously was the case here. This story wouldn’t have been this story if the characters were any different than they were.

This story and everything about it was incredibly complex and rich. The characters were crazy and I felt like I was in the middle of the media frenzy myself. I can’t say much else except that if you are looking for a shocking read that you really won’t want to put down, pick this up immediately. It consumed my thoughts the whole few days I was reading it and I was constantly itching to pick it back up and discover what would happen next. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I still can’t! This is probably my favorite read of the year so far and definitely the most gripping book I’ve ever read. I declared a book hangover after finishing it because I know I may never read another book quite like this one again. I highly recommend it.
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Reviewed by Stephanie

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