Original title: Gone Girl
Author: Gillian Flynn
Year of Publication:
Number of pages: 553
Available in: English, Spanish and 40 + languages
I read it in: English
"Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl."
Nick Dunne wakes up on the morning of his anniversary and leaves for work. He then receives a call from a concerned neighbour: "Your house door is wide open", so he goes back just to find out his wife, Amy Elliott Dunne, is missing. Oddly calm he calls the police, only to find out he has no convincing alibi and the entire world's eyes set on him. 
We start with Nick this way: confused, calmed, careless. He doesn't seem like a murderer but he also doesn't seem too worried or affected. And as we watch the story unfold on his side, with his toughts and decisions, we also see Amy Elliot Dunne, the wife, writing to us in her diaries, telling her story, how they fell in love, how their marriage came to be, and how it started to crumble little by little.
The first thing I thought of when I read this book was: "I hope I hadn't watch the movie first". Because, oh boy, was this book a trip. I won't say more about the plot, as it is incredibly good and it's worth the read. If you've seen the movie already, and you know what's going on, still go pick up the book.
The thing about this book is, it's not only a compelling story with a great deep writing, but it's also an amazing look at people. We begin with two human beings who are not model-citizens: Amy is a snob and she's too full of herself, and Nick is selfish and careless. But Amy is also wickedly smart and Nick is self conscious enough to know where he's gone wrong, they both are. So as we read, we dance through their thoughts, we drift through their lies and we marvel at their actions, wondering what really is the truth. And then we get it, and it's cold as only truth can be.
Also, the way all charecters are written in this book is chilly and dead-on. You truly get an insight on their heads and what every human head must be like, with different opinions and reasons, deep, and you see them take awful decisions and how they are reasonable about them, how they truly think they are right. And that is definitely the part I enjoyed most about the book, you are first row and you know all the person you're reading about knows, how they see everything, the character vs. what the rest of the world thinks, so we get a great mixture between what we are exposed to everyday: the media, other people's perceptions, ideas and judgments, half-assed truths and cut pictures, all colliding with what we see ourselves, wtih what we see and experience, and how sometimes we forget to be critical about what surrounds us and we just dive in.
Bottom line: buy it, read it, enjoy.
- Where to buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, The Book Depository
- Movie Trailer
- Find Amazing Amy
