Gone Girl was all the rage a couple of years ago when it hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list but because we usually pick our book club books a year out, we couldn’t fit it in until now. I’d heard so many raves about it that I was curious (especially because more recently I’ve heard from more people that couldn’t get what the fuss was all about) and now I get the raves though let me tell you right off the bat, about 54% into the book, I didn’t like it and didn’t get it.
I’m also going to tell you I fear I cannot write more on this book without spoiling so considered yourself warned, don’t read further if you don’t want to be spoiled.
After about that mark, I saw what some of the hype was about though I had a feeling all along about that big reveal. And it was finally at that point that I liked Amy, briefly. I mean really those diary entries were totally unbelievable and while we knew Nick was asshole, Amy just seemed a simpering twat. Plus the descriptions of Amy via Nick and the ones presented by her diary totally conflicted. Anyway, I felt, why bother with either one of them?
Then of course, we find out Amy is alive (when I read the first line of the big reveal in Part 2 I thought, oh god, don’t tell me they’re going to do another dead person narrative a la The Lovely Bones but then I realized Amy was just talking to us, after having faked her death), and for a bit I liked her. I mean after all, I think you’re probably a liar if at some point in your marriage you say you never felt like doing something bad to your husband after a fight or especially after finding out he cheated on you! And she was getting some great revenge.
But liking Amy only lasts for a moment because like Nick, as we learn a bit more about Amy, we realize she’s a sociopath! Now that’s an interesting twist! Something new and a bit original. But you can’t really like a sociopath. It’s just a shame it took us like 70% of the way into the book to finally get to something that’s not cliche. Especially because the author goes on rants throughout about how cliche all our lives are with the inundation of television and movies. It’s a shame that at 80% in I finally don’t want to put the book down. And that’s what’s wrong with this book. (I’ll skip the complaint about how cliche is it that your super villain who is super smart always does something stupid that leads to their demise).
I don’t mind the ending, though my friend Stephanie will probably pull her hair out with the complete lack of closure. I do mind though that it took so long to get to something interesting. And like The Invisible Bridge, I’m left feeling as if the best part of this story, the story I really want to read, is what happens after the book ends, not the book itself.
I won’t give it only one star (didn’t like), because of the sociopath angle, but I can’t see giving it more than two stars.