Just how well can you ever know the person you love? This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren't his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what did really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife? And what was left in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war...I'm pretty sure 'gone girl' has become an official publishing term, if not a new international adjective. "You've just got to buy this, it's sooooo Gone Girl. It's started to appear in hopeful unsolicited submissions - 'I like to think my novel is a cross between Gone Girl and Da Vinci Code.' I too would like to think that. Unfortunately it is 99.9% unlikely to be true.
A friend said the other day that Gone Girl's success is just genius marketing of a great concept. All I could think was that you could arguably say that of any successful novel. But after a couple of days I can kind of see what she means. It's entirely in first person so you can't exactly say it's 'beautifully written', albeit that the voices are well crafted. What makes it really different is Flynn's use of an unreliable narrator.
It's scary how we automatically trust certain people, notably protagonists in novels, and then how disconcerting it is when you're forced to question that natural assumption. It's even more unnerving when the person is your husband/wife/long term partner. Gillian Flynn plays with both of these in this 'domestic thriller' - which is a new genre I have coined... just now... but has probably been used in publishing sales teams for centuries...
Another clever thing that Gillian Flynn has done is make it virtually impossible to talk about it! Which is incredibly frustrating... Everyone hates it when someone goes 'well you'll just have to read it'. Bleh. But it's a clever little ploy which ultimately plays on our predictable human reaction... buy the book. And voila, an international bestseller. Any budding writers out there? Take note. Although now this has already been done, you're already too late. Sorry.
So yeah, can't really talk much about this without giving it away but it's good... it's a classic page-turner with plenty of twists and turns. 8.5/10
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