Guess Again

On the eve of my 18th wedding anniversary, I started reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  Gone Girl  is the story of Amy Elliott and Nick Dunne.  Amy and Nick met in New York City, fell in love, and got married.  Amy tells the story in her diary, while alternating chapters tell Nick's point of view.  From the beginning, I felt like I knew people like them.  I would like people like them.  Maybe I am a little "people like them".  They seem to live a charmed life, even though they are going through a rough patch in their marriage.  But then, on their 5th wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing, and it appears that she has been forcibly abducted. 

From there, Flynn takes the reader on an thrill ride.  Who to trust?  Who to blame?   Nick doesn't react to the abduction the way that one might expect a husband to react, and quickly becomes the prime suspect.  I don't want to tell you much about why this is, but I will tell you that there is a character who seems to be based on Nancy Grace who is stirring the pot.

Complicating matters, Amy's parents have made a nice little empire out of a series of childrens' books called "Amazing Amy", starring their very own daughter, Amy.  In spite of their degrees in psychology, they turn Amazing Amy into something that real life Amy finds hard to emulate, while exploiting her life for their material.  Due to the Amazing Amy books, real life Amy has also found herself the target of stalkers, and of people who feel that they know her better than they really do.

Gone Girl is incredibly well written.  Before I started reading, I had seen tons of GoodReads reviews of the book, all of which were either 5 stars, saying that the book was great, or 4 stars, saying that the book was great, until the ending which the reviewer hated.  With that in mind, from the start I was trying to guess what the ending would be, and why I would hate it.  Flynn kept me constantly surprised.  What I will say about the ending is that I didn't like what happened at the end, but that it is deliberate, it is consistent, and it is a lot to think about. 

There's not much more that I want to tell you about this book, because it is the well planned surprises that make it so great.  I am adding this to my list of Favorites.  So, here I go again:  Go. Get. It. And. Read.   I haven't gotten to say that in a while.

Next up:  The Odyssey by Homer

Still Listening to:  Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison