Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was a rather twisted read.  A woman goes missing and all of the clues point directly to the husband.  An ironclad case...but is he really guilty?  The reader is left wondering in the first half of the book, mind going in every direction. 

Maybe this happened...or maybe that.  Different theories flying through the mind, the author having done an excellent job guiding the reader to like this character more than that and think multiple scenarios were possible.

18% of the way through the book, I decided I knew what happened.  I was right.  Flynn threw me for a loop one time where I thought maybe something different may have occurred; however, I ultimately became right and knew what was going on early on.  I just didn't know the reasoning behind it all.

You would think I was disappointed by that.  Everyone likes a good twist.  I was not.  The reasoning for WHY the action occurred made my blood flow, my heart beat faster.  During the second half of the book, I thought "wow...maybe I am Amy Elliott Dunne" more than once.

I can't go into detail of the plot because of the mystery aspect of the book, but if you have read this far, you might not want to continue.

I am a woman who was deeply betrayed.  I was hurt beyond anything I could have ever imagined by a person who was supposedly my best friend...and another person who played the part of BFF like a fucking sociopathic piece of shit (classy, I know).  So when it came to light that Amy Elliott Dunne was framing her husband in the most elaborate way for his infidelity, I was proud of her.  You go girl.  Her strategic planning and patience almost sent her husband to death row.  What scorned woman doesn't want the most terrible thing to happen to a cheating man? 

Turns out, though, that Amy was a bit of a psychopath.  I did feel bad for her husband every once in awhile, but not bad enough to think that what Amy was doing was wrong...until the end.  When she comes back.  Her narcissism couldn't keep her away.  I was happy that the husband wasn't going to prison, sure...but she comes back and is in control of everything.  She never gets caught for a single lie that she made (by the right people, i.e. the police) and she moves on with her husband as her prisoner.  Unhappiness.  Everytime the husband finds an out, she has another trick up her sleeve.

The last sordid thing Amy did was get pregnant, using semen she got at the sperm bank from years before.  Her husband was trapped.  They stay together in this miserable life, supposedly 'addicted' to each other.  No.  She was addicted to him...he was a 34 year old sucker who was going to have to be with this insane woman for the rest of his life.  He was going to raise a child in an unhappy home.  He was going to have to fake it for the rest of his life.  Angerness, bitterness every time he looked into his wife's face. 

The book ended.  Nothing was resolved.  I felt cheated, as a reader, for not having the ends neatly tied up.  I realize this is very trendy thing for author's to do, but who doesn't like a nice, happy ending?  I do.  I feel incomplete with the ending of this book.  To me, these characters are stuck in a house, unhappy and about to bring a child into the world...a woman who has murdered and lied her whole life never being punished for anything.  No consequences for Amy.

I will always wonder why the marionette dolls didn't put Amy away...

You have to understand something about me.  I like to read.  I like a good story.  I only get surface deep, though.  I don't go and read reviews before and after a book.  I don't try to find underlying meanings or compare characters and actions to huge themes and life lessons.  I read for entertainment purposes only...so this book may have some deep meaning that I didn't pick up on.  One thing that I do like is discussing a book with someone else when I'm done to see what they thought--but it's hard when nobody reads the same books as me.