I began reading Gone Girl because I was out of options. That sounds dismissive of the book, which I probably would have read at some point anyway, but it's also the truth. As what was supposed to be a four-day hospital stay with Joey while he recovered from surgery turned into a three-week affair with plenty of down time, I motored through the book I brought with me (Pet Sematary) and the book I bought about a week in (The Art of Fielding). We still had days to go, so I took a walk down to Fenway for my second trip to the Boston University Barnes & Noble. (I feel like I have to state that, yes, as a librarian, I know the public library was an option. But we were close to getting discharged and I didn't want to have to make a side-trip across the city to return a book I hadn't yet finished on our way home.)
I was looking for a sale and found a buy-two-get-one-free table. The first book I noticed was Jim Gaffigan's parenting memoir Dad is Fat, which was exactly the type of book Matt and I read together. Then I saw Gone Girl, which has been on my "I really ought to read that" list since it came out. (The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian, an author that keeps getting recommended to me but who I've never read before, rounded out my three.)
I began reading it in the hospital and Callie, Joey's energetic nurse, noticed it right away. "SO GOOD," she gushed. The next day, Joey was moved to another room. His new nurse saw me reading when she came in to give him some medicine. "That is such a great book," she said, then launched into a confession of her love of thrillers and Dennis Lehane books.
The nursing staff of Boston Children's Hospital wasn't alone. I was told how much I'd love it by friends and by a random woman in the parking lot of a rest stop on the Mass Pike, who knocked on my window while I read in the car waiting for Matt to use the bathroom. She pointed to the book with wide eyes and gave me a thumbs up, mouthing, "SO GOOD," in the exact same way as Callie. It was only moderately terrifying.
So you might say I had high expectations.
And to a degree, it lived up to it. The author - Gillian Flynn - is clearly talented. I'm not really talking about her writing style - although she's talented in that regards, too - but in the even more impressive way in which she parceled out information so that the entire book was one like one long twist.
The story centers on the marriage of Amy and Nick Dunne, recently laid off magazine writers who move from New York City to Nick's tiny hometown in Missouri to care for his ailing parents. On the morning of their fifth anniversary, Amy goes missing. But questions begin arising: Is she dead? Kidnapped? Is Nick responsible? How complicated of a relationship did they have, anyway?
The answer to that last question is very. Amy spent her life as her parents' muse, the real-life subject of a fictionalized children's book series they penned. Nick was the doted-upon son/nephew/brother of the women in his life while hating his toxic father. The book is told in the first person, with chapters alternating between Amy's and Nick's point of view, and it's soon obvious that something is not adding up. Their respective experiences are just so different. So what's really going on?
Gone Girl was extremely unpredictable pretty much throughout, and I commend Flynn's ability to both drop hints early on and not give anything away. My only real qualm is that I hated both Nick and Amy. Hated them. I'm not averse to enjoying something with unlikable protagonists - I'm a huge fan of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, for one. But even the most evil characters have redeeming qualities or at least side characters you can root for. Amy and Nick were both loathsome, and other than possibly Nick's sister Go, the side characters were mostly window dressing. The ending was surprising and not what I think most readers were rooting for, but at that point, I was so irritated by the way it was turning out, I really didn't care. It's like watching drama unfold in front of you. Eventually, you just throw up your arms and say, "Whatever, guys. Have fun."
That being said, I'm not so sunshine-and-rainbowy that I can't appreciate a dark story with unlikable characters, and I really did like the book. I stayed up longer than I meant to last night so I could finish it, and if that's not the sign of a well-crafted story, I don't know what is.
Side note: One of the reasons I wanted to read this book this summer is because the movie is supposed to come out in October. Then, after I finished, I learned that the ending is supposed to be very different (this article goes into that but it's also one big Spoiler Alert for anyone who hasn't read the book). And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. In fact, I'm curious how it turns out, and I'm excited about the idea of Neil Patrick Harris playing Desi Collings and Tyler Perry as Tanner Bolt (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike play Nick and Amy).
