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Gone Girl
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DISCUSSION OPEN - GONE GIRL - 2013 Group Read #1
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I gotta see what all the fuss about this novel is about! I've been looking for a cheap used copy, but no go; guess I'll have to go with the Kindle edition, always a last resort...oh my paper-loving ways.
Mod
Having a flick through my paperback copy, it's got some structure and formatting to it that I think might suffer a little in the Kindle Edition. It might not be an issue for you, but I know for me that being able to see the formatting and get a sense of the structure helps me to process the story a bit better. Then again, it's not anything like Last Exit To Brooklyn where the formatting's an integral part of the book.
Great book. I read this last fall.
I just read this a couple months ago and was pleasantly surprised -- one of the few recent bestsellers that lived up to the hype for me.
Sharp Objectsblew my mind and I was so excited to see anything new from this author. I'm looking forward to discussing her latest (?) book Gone Girl
I just finished reading this book and honestly I was a bit disappointed in it. I don't think it lived up to the hype at all. It just wasn't my cup of tea I guess.
Mod
Friday 1 Feb 2013.
Just finished. Looking forward to discussing
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I read the book on a 4 hour flight. With all the hype, I was half expecting someone to comment, but no one did. When I wad Julie & Julia on the same flight a few years back, I almost couldn't get any where, I was interrupted so often.
Jessica wrote: "I read the book on a 4 hour flight. With all the hype, I was half expecting someone to comment, but no one did. When I wad Julie & Julia on the same flight a few years back, I almost couldn't get a..."This is a perfect example of why I predominately read from the Kindle app on my phone. If you read a book, people always ask you what you are reading; if you read on a Kindle, people who know what a Kindle is ask what you are reading, but if you stare at your phone for hours, nobody seems to care.
Mod
Okay, so I know a lot of people were keen to talk about this one. Personally, I thought the characters were extremely well written and relatable. I loved that Flynn showed how a psychopathic character could be that relatable - almost as if she could be anyone you know.
I wasn't as keen on the murder/mystery elements (there were a few details I wasn't sure worked logically), but overall a really great book.
Mod
***Warning, discussion is on - so spoilers abound***
I totally bought into what Amy was saying in her diary before it was revealed what she was really up to. Did anyone start to suspect she wasn’t the Amazing Amy she presented herself as? Some people said they started to think Nick might have killed Amy. Did you think he was lying in his sections, or did he seem like a flawed but fairly reliable narrator?
What was the attraction between Nick and Amy initially? Was their failing marriage due to Nick’s inconsiderateness, Amy’s pathological need for a perfectly scripted life, or something else?
Was Nick at all an effective advocate for himself? Until he starts playing the game on Amy’s terms, he just seems to sink himself deeper into trouble. Is there some truth to Amy’s belief that being with her makes him strive to be a ‘better’, or at least more ambitious, person?
Amy was playing a role in their relationship the entire time they were together. By the end, Nick is also playing a role and starting to blur the difference in his mind. Was this just an example of the roles people play in their relationships taken to a pathological level, or was it something completely different?
What did people think about the structure of the book? Could the same story have been told in a more traditional narrative form?
Whoa, what a captivating book! Unputdownable. I totally bought Diary Amy too, I was ready to go lesbian and marry her myself, then we could both watch Nick rot in hell while using his own in-flames self to roast our marshmallows.
I thought I was really clever in suspecting Nick right from page one, cause there are so many holes in his story he never talks about, and he never comes out and say (or think even): I didn't do it.
...I was never good at guess-who-the-killer-is kind of stories. Thats whats so cool about it, I always get the plot twist like a punch in the face xD
The attraction in the beggining was what all recent couples have, I guess: they both liked each others looks and each others company. The problem is one was faking it and the other one was making an effort. As soon as enough time went by for them to be accustomed to each other boredom kicked in.
The thing is I think Nick never really loved Amy until she shows the psico bitch she really is. He pegged her for just an angry, lonely new work rich women who is dragged against her will to the little town. He didn't see who she was at all.
Once he did, he admired her so completely, he ACTUALLY fell in love. The kind of love-hate thing, of course. But hell, we all have a loony of some kind inside right?
In the end, I agree with Go he was looking for an excuse to stay. He didnt know how to be just Nick anymore, he was addicted to the adrenaline of sleeping in bed with a box of dinamite.
...I'm really afraid of the kid thats gonna come out of that union. xD
The structure was what was so brilliant I think. Any other way, it wouldn't have work out so well.
I was pleasantly suprised by the novel, I thought it would be just a flavor of the week type thing. The writing was fantastic, and I think the structure really aided in taking the story to the next level. The first chapter really gave me a Poe-esque feel, with Nick focusing on the shape of Amy's head. That being said I loved the first half of the book, but the second half I really just didn't like. I'm still not sure why that is, it just didn't draw me in as the first half did. Also I HATED Amy in the first section. I didn't predict the ending, so I'm not sure why, but she just felt fake. And it was basically the opposite of my feelings towards Nick (actually like him in the first half, disliked in the second half). Maybe it was just a subconcious feeling on my part, I'm not sure. The ending and Nick's decision to stay with her, just felt false to me. I understand you want to bring out suprising actions in characters, but it was just a total "Nobody would do that" instance. I actually was hoping he would murder her for real.
Overall though I was blown away by the strong writing and she did keep the reader guessing the whole time as too what was really going on/happening. She also portrayed some relationship/marraige issues in a very interesting light.
"The thing is I think Nick never really loved Amy until she shows the psico bitch she really is. He pegged her for just an angry, lonely new work rich women who is dragged against her will to the little town. He didn't see who she was at all. Once he did, he admired her so completely, he ACTUALLY fell in love. The kind of love-hate thing, of course. But hell, we all have a loony of some kind inside right?" - per Frozenwaffle, I agree 100 percent with this statement. I thought the whole plot was driven by Nicks refusal to see the real Amy. Go had a better handle on Amy than Nick did. Amy, realizing her advantage did her very best to remake her life, a new life minus Nick and only gave in when she was caught in the Ozarks by a pair of cons who were clearly her equal. I live close to St. Louis and vacation in the Ozarks and will give the writer points for excellant recreation of small town depressed Missouri, vacation haven Missouri and big city Missouri. As a rule. I don' read this type of book but I could not put this down. I do not think any other structure would have been better than the one used. I went in wondering about NIck, slowly beginning to see through the lines in Amy's diary to having no idea how it would end. Would Nick kill Amy? Would Amy kill Nick? This book had me spinning my wheels for sure. One more thing, I don't think I have ever encountered a fictional character that is as successfully drawn to form as Amy. She is the perfect sociopath. Charismatic, endlessly inventive and seemingly a really nice person. All together. Switch it on, switch if off. I would love to know where the author got her inspiration for Amy.
Frozenwaffle wrote: "The thing is I think Nick never really loved Amy until she shows the psico bitch she really is. He pegged her for just an angry, lonely new work rich women who is dragged against her will to the little town. He didn't see who she was at all. ..."I agree. I think there's something about her psycho-hood that engages Nick, it satisfied something in him. I think he's a little psycho himself.
Ben wrote: " I loved the first half of the book, but the second half I really just didn't like..."I get that. The second half started getting contrived. Like: money isn't an issue in her disappearance because she's going to kill herself. Oh, wait, nope, she's not. Instead she's going to call her ex, who -oops- pseudo imprisons her, so now she's going to kill him and get away with a cockamamie story.
Too deus ex machina.
At first I thought I was going to be super disappointed in this book because I thought it was going to turn out that Nick did it, and if that was the case, I was ready to write a scathing review about how transparent the plot was.I totally did not expect, or even suspect, that Amy was crazy. I loved the plot twists, but like Ben said, the first half was more realistic than the 2nd half.
Like Karen said, I think Nick never saw the real Amy, and I did feel bad for her about that - it's not a good feeling when you show your true self and then your partner doesn't like it. I suppose that's what happens in lots of marriages - the real reason for the 7 year itch: you just can't show your best side constantly for that long.
I think, in the end, Nick does fall back in love with Amy. Psycho that she is, she's clearly brilliant and vivacious and beautiful. Objectively speaking, what's not to love ;)
At the end of the book, Amy also has a renewed lease on life; she has a new project: to make her husband fall back in love with her. If we know anything about Amy, it's that she loves a challenge.
Jessica wrote: "I think he's a little psycho himself. "Exactly. Another point worth bringing up is how easily Nick falls in and out of love - and in such convenient moments! He was ready to say he loved Andie, but when it became a burden instead of the release from the first burden, he let it go in the blink of an eye.
This kind of selfishness does say something about his potential psicosis...
I whipped through this one because wanted to have finished in time for the discussion and because it was so highly readable.>Whitney wrote:What did people think about the structure of the book? Could the same story have been told in a more traditional narrative form?
I would say the form was perfect for this novel. The back and forth play between the 1st Amy diary and Nick's 1,2,3 days gone narrative was nice and jittery and set us up for the total whiplash of the 2nd Amy diary. Very slick, and I mean that in a good way!!Another thing that i think kept this from being just a kind of dark chick-lit mystery thing was the tone: very wry and dry, detached and self-observing. No "oh my Gods" and no dramatic and busy adverbs, etc.
Ben wrote: " I loved the first half of the book, but the second half I really just didn't like..."
Yeah, there were some parts in the investigation that felt kind of dull and also a few I dunno, discrepancies (?),in Amy's plan B that could have been avoided. But getting to reas a sociopath's journal mostly made up for that.
Jessica wrote: At first I thought I was going to be super disappointed in this book because I thought it was going to turn out that Nick did it...
Ha ha, I had the same fleeting feeling for a few pages (I want my money back!) but then, I figured nah, she (not Amy, the author!) is just playing us for a while. But I was disappointed with the ending.
Frozenwaffle said: ..I'm really afraid of the kid thats gonna come out of that union. xD
Afraid of him or afraid for him? Amazing Amy and Needy Nick produce Troublesome Tommy or Disturbed Donny?
Andrea wrote: "I whipped through this one because wanted to have finished in time for the discussion and because it was so highly readable.>Whitney wrote:What did people think about the structure of the book? C..." Disturbed Donny gets my vote. Nick is going to have a lot of surpressed anger and Amy is going to play with that.
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Andrea, I love 'Needy Nick', I think that hits the nail on the head. When Amy stopped being worshipful, he found young, eager student Andie to worship him instead. In a sense, he does kind of get what he deserves, if only for being so shallow.
Karen, your comment that Go had a better handle on Amy made me go back and look up this quote from early in the book:
"I would get glimpses of Go’s thoughts in a sentence here or there. It’s funny, I can’t quite get a bead on her, like who she really is. And: You just seem kind of not yourself with her. And: There’s a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her. And finally: The important thing is she makes you really happy.
Sums things up pretty neatly in retrospect.
Good quotes, Whitney, they really do sum up how both of them kind of molded themselves to the other, or the idea of the other one.And what about the parents? Did anyone else think that Amy's parents were kind of weird despite all their lovey-dovey hand-holding and such? I mean they used their daughter as a model for a very stupid-sounding children's books series (not to mention draining her trust fund!). Then we have Nick's dad, I can't figure him out. It seems like maybe his wanderings and negative reactions to Amy were almost put in there as red herring. I actually thought at one point that he was going to turn out to be the killer. Or maybe Flynn is trying to make some sort of nature vs. nurture point?
Her parents were really creepy. I thought that maybe they also had the same psychopatic relationship as amy and nick, and we only get to see how mushy it looks on the outside.
Andrea wrote: "Good quotes, Whitney, they really do sum up how both of them kind of molded themselves to the other, or the idea of the other one.And what about the parents? Did anyone else think that Amy's par..." I thought her parents use of Amy as the model for all those famous books was the root of Amy's psychosis and yes I thought they were singularly weird.
Jessica wrote: "At first I thought I was going to be super disappointed in this book because I thought it was going to turn out that Nick did it, and if that was the case, I was ready to write a scathing review ab..."Ha! I would have too, but decided against it early on: the writing was so fantastic that I was sure G. Flynn would never have deceived her readers with such a flimsy solution. We were indeed rewarded! At one point I thought it might be Nick 's father... The ending? Not bad. Reminded me of Fatal Attraction. Do we see a Number 2? Glad to hear it will be a movie--Reese Witherspoon would be great. Who will be Nick? Amy's parents? Definitely screwed up (not at all in touch with real life). No surprise they raised a psycho.
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I recommend checking out the Podcast, it's from the one broadcast on the 31st.
Whitney wrote: "Regarding the discussion about how Amy's parents shaped who she was, I just listened to a discussion with Gillian Flynn on the Guardian Books Podcast where this came up. She said that she developed..." Fascinating. I was wondering how she invented Amy.
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I actually liked Amy a lot more than I liked Nick. And yes, I do know what says about me! What made Nick so difficult to like was that he was so believable. We all know men like that - far too passive and lazy, and prepared to hurt others rather than taking action and actually steering their own life. I constantly felt like shaking him through the book!
I have to say, I wasn't really surprised by where the plot went - but then I knew there was a twist to the book beforehand.
Mod
Thanks, Ruby! I felt that way about Nick as well. During the interview mentioned above, Flynn also said that Nick was largely formed by his layoff from his writing job, since that job was what largely defined him (an experience Flynn herself went through). I think where she may have failed was in not defining him as a more active character before he was laid off. To me, he also seemed passive, drifting through life on his looks and charm.
Regarding his parents, I think that may have been what made him all 'surface'. A somewhat typical dynamic of abusive father and self-abnegating mother taught him to show a face to the world that he thought it wanted to see, rather than really exposing himself. Anyone else have an opinion on Nick's background?
I liked her description of Nick & Amy's household after their layoffs. My husband worked for one of the banks during the financial meltdown and was laid off. He was unemployed for 10 months, and during that time, he acted just as Flynn described. He rarely got dressed, showered inconsistently, ate garbage, slept alot. Since I was still employed, I was horrified by his behavior. It was like he was a different person. I didn't know him at all. It's true what they say about losing a job is like grieving a death. I think it's actually a grievance of the death of a piece of you. Our jobs take up so much of our lives, and when we lose them, we lose what defines us. There's a period that we have to go through to find who we are without that major piece of our lives.
As far as Nick's parents go...
His mother babied Nick too much and Amy's parents put her in a position where she felt she couldn't be anything less than perfect. Both need a lot of attention to keep their egos up - in the same way that you need more and more drugs to get to the same level of high. Obviously, 2 such people together are toxic.
I didn't really get Nick's Dad. I didn't get his wanderings or his nonsensical exclamations to Amy. I'm sure I was missing something....
Jessica wrote: "I liked her description of Nick & Amy's household after their layoffs. My husband worked for one of the banks during the financial meltdown and was laid off. He was unemployed for 10 months, and du..."If I recall correctly at some point (in the second half) Amy says about how she told Nick's dad thier home is always welcome for him and to come over whenever, just to mess with Nick some more. I too thought the dad would play a larger role but it seems he was just a red herring in the story. Although his interactions with Nick in the story make me believe he read through fake Amy's persona and tried to warn Nick early on that she wasn't who he thought she was, and they just ignored it due to his history of disliking women and his dementia.
I just finished this one today! I did really like it over all, although it's definitely not the usual thing I would go for, but I have to say: in the first half I started skim reading bits. All that suspense building, I get it, that it makes the whole thing build, but after a while I just got a bit bored of it. When we start getting the real Amy - THEN I was really gripped by it! Great characters. I was so taken in by the diary Amy from the first half that I had to keep reminding myself that they weren't the same character any more! I think it's also important for us to remember that a lot of the things we 'know' about how Nick was comes from Amy's fictional diary, and because we don't know it's a set up yet, we don't read it with a critical eye towards the narrater. But obviously with hindsight, we should. We find out that although some of it is based in truth (Nick corroborates small details in his own narrative, like the "just one olive though") we also find out that a lot of it never happened at all. Like the violent incident over the credit card bills. So really we don't set in stone know that much about what their life was like before they moved out of NYC eg. after getting laid off. We just know what fictional (I know that she's always fictional but I mean the Amy that she makes up) Amy told us. And I don't find it completely unbelievable that he stayed with her at the end. Unlike other readers I really do believe that he loved her (even though she wasn't entirely being herself) and she loved him too in the beginning. And it was interesting that with all her crazy stories - she let's her victims see what she could have reduced them too (like the date rape guy) and then doesn't go the whole way. She doesn't actually let Nick go to jail for murder and even he has to say thankyou for that. And yes, I know that she kills that guy at the end, and shows no remorse, it's something of a last resort. She IS a prisoner. So I'm not entirely convinced that there's nothing worth saving in her - and I got the feeling that Nick felt the same.
Nonetheless I whole-heartedly agree with previous comments that you would not want that couple as your parents!
Sophie wrote: " a lot of the things we 'know' about how Nick was comes from Amy's fictional diary, and because we don't know it's a set up yet, we don't read it with a critical eye towards the narrater..."good point
Mod
Just looking through my notes from when I was reading it, and saw this: Amy's character rings true. Many women would find themselves somewhere on the Amy Spectrum (and those same women would probably write her off as a psycho later in the book), but it's only the extremes she went to that differ from the norm: The degree, not the desire.
So many interesting comments in this discussion, and i have yet to check out the podcast Whitney suggested. At any rate, I'm glad that I managed to read this before the movie is released (does anyone else feel that the gap between the book publication and the movie version is getting shorter and shorter? It's like they snap these things up like hungry trout!) But as Jane wrote: -Reese Witherspoon would be great. I agree, i think she'd be a perfect Amy! I remember her in "The Candidate" w/ Matthex Broderick. Blinding type A personality!
Ruby, I definitely agree with you about Amy being a strangely "normal" and logical woman at times. It's just her methods that are so creepy and out of control! What I found most interesting about the whole "Cool Girl" thing, was that I kept wondering what the alternative was? For Amy, she only found out that she was pretending to be a cool girl when she falls in love with Nick right? So what were her options? I'm not saying that in the same position I'd meticulously fake my own death and then frame the him for no longer loving me as a control freak psycho, in a dazzlingly brilliant display of how clever and malicious I could be. But still, it kinda worked? Nick came to love her for who she was, even if who she was was pretty terrifying!
I agree with a lot of the comments on here. I definitely enjoyed the first half of the book much more then the second half. That was really the only part of the book I enjoyed and then I started getting bored with it.There was a fleeting moment in the beginning where I thought Nick might have done it and was just blacking out on the details but as the story unfolded, Nick seemed less and less of a threat. As much as he kept digging himself deeper and deeper with the police and the community, I just couldn't believe that laid back Nick was a killer. The whole time, to me anyway, I felt like he was getting set up. It wasn't until the police started talking to Nick about the fake crime scene that I realized Amy was the one setting him up. I mean who else would go through all that trouble.
I liked Amy in the beginning but her diary entries really seemed to naive and to good to be true. While Nick always seemed to be hiding something, he still seemed more truthful to me that Amazing Amy. For some small reason that I couldn't explain, I started disliking Amy pretty quickly which made the twist foreseeable and I'm usually really bad with getting twists.
Towards the end of the book, I really lost interest in both characters. Their constant lies and betrayals made it hard to make out who they even were. I no longer really cared what happened to Nick or Amy. I was really hoping one would kill the other and the one left standing would go to prison and that would be the end of that. (I think it would have been a much more believable ending then what actually happened.) It's really hard for me to keep on going when I don't even have interest in the characters anymore and that was my problem with this book. The book started off with so much promise and then it just dropped me hard giving me nothing but a headache to remember it by.
So many new good points here. The fact that we draw early conclusions from Amy's diary entries, the fact that Amy may be 'playing Nicks family against his wishes, the indication that Amy's behavior could be an almost normal reaction to finding herself stuck in a truly 'uncool' environment AND having to deal with her families sudden financial problems which would have removed a safety net. This is an excellant discussion, so glad we picked this book.
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That's it. That comment wins the internet.
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Me too. That whole persona is so ubiquitous these days, it's pretty much expected of women. It is kind of depressing to think about!
Karina wrote: "I liked Amy in the beginning but her diary entries really seemed to naive and to good to be true. ..."
I thought it was a bit too smug and very close to Bridget Jones in places too.
I had a similar issue to you, Karina. I loved the first half, but once the murder/mystery stuff took over, I found it less interesting. The comment I wrote at the time was: Flynn's skill lies in writing about people. Once the story takes a turn into the nitty gritty clues of a murder mystery, there are too many details that don't quite work or make logical sense. It bursts the bubble and takes you out of the mood of the first half.
Andrea wrote: "So many interesting comments in this discussion, and i have yet to check out the podcast Whitney suggested. At any rate, I'm glad that I managed to read this before the movie is released (does any..."Yes! Mathew Broderick. Good idea.
Karina wrote: "I agree with a lot of the comments on here. I definitely enjoyed the first half of the book much more then the second half. That was really the only part of the book I enjoyed and then I started ge..."Sorry, i disagree. The opposite for me. I thought it really took off once the real mystery/thriller bit clicked. (I had put off reading it expecting something completely different.) but what a surprise & what suspense! A great tale... Not really looking for the veracity of characters... Just a terrific, quite original thriller. (Would one look for a believable character in Hannibal Lecter? Hope not). I totally agree with Sophie's comments. A very good book & "Story". Couldnt put it down; full of surprises & extremely clever. Definitely not YA!
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"...I said: ‘My gosh, Nick, why are you so wonderful to me?’
He was supposed to say: You deserve it. I love you.
But he said, ‘Because I feel sorry for you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because every morning you have to wake up and be you.’
I really, truly wish he hadn’t said that. I keep thinking about it. I can’t stop."
And did anyone read Flynn's gushing praise for her husband in the afterword as if it had been written by Amy? I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking 'yeah, right, Gillian, tell us more about your supposedly perfect marriage'.
Ha ha! yeah my eyes rolled a bit too when I skimmed that afterward thankfest, especially the praise for her wonderful parents, st like "still in love after all these years" Sounds like Amy's parents! Icky. I don't know why some authors indulge in that sort of thing; I guess it's the equivalent of an Oscar winner's speech. Some just say "thank you, all" and others yammer on and on. But I don't want to be negative - it's their book, they can do all the thanking and dedicating they like. ;-]
When I was a kid, I would always start writing books, get through the About The Author section, and then never get around to the actual writing of the book.At 8, 9, and 10 years old, it didn't occur to me that the About The Author could be the book.
Mod
Yes. I definitely would. Whatever the genre, I would be looking for well developed believable characters. That's one of the elements of a well-written novel, I think.
I'm curious - Why would you expect the "thriller" genre in particular to be exempt from having believable characters?
Chaos Reading
Books mentioned in this topic
The Women's Room (other topics)Sharp Objects (other topics)
Gone Girl (other topics)
Last Exit to Brooklyn (other topics)
Gone Girl (other topics)
More...
2013 Group Read #1: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
GROUP READ DETAILS
Reading starts: As soon as you're able
Discussion Starts: 1 February 2013
*On the day, I'll add a note to the title of this thread to let people know the discussion's started. In the meantime, people can stop by this thread to chat, and I might post some bonus material about the book- but no spoilers until discussion opens please.
FACTS & TRIVIA
*Length: Approx. 420 pages
*First published: 2012
*Author: Gillian Flynn (US)
*2012 GoodReads Readers' Choice Award (Best Mystery/Thriller)
*American culture writer Dave Itzkoff wrote that the novel was, (excepting books in the Fifty Shades of Grey series), the biggest literary phenomenon of 2012.
*Sold over two million copies in print and digital editions in the first year of publication.
*Film rights have been bought by Reese Witherspoon's production company, with Flynn to write the screenplay herself.