Gone Girl

This book is a smart pop culture thriller. I’ve read it twice to examine how Gillian Flynn crafts her suspenseful-filled sequences.

What I enjoyed most about this book was how unpredictable it was. I find it very rare for a thriller to be so well-written and believable. Amy, the protagonist, is so incredibly cunning, always one step ahead of Nick and the reader

Many years ago, when I was sharing several chapters of my book with my then-writing group, I faced harsh criticism from some of its members, mainly due to my protagonist, Trickster.

They found her too violent, too cunning, and without remorse. I read in many of Flynn’s interviews that she had also received a lot of criticism for her vicious main character. Certain readers believed the murderous, unrepenting heroine of this book was a shame to womanhood.

In defense of my violent heroine Trickster, I quoted Flynn’s response to her critics: the notion that women are inherently good and nurturing… show more.

I don’t think any top 5 thrillers list would be complete without a Gillian Flynn title. In all her books, I love how Flynn combines twisty, edge-of-your-seat plotting with deep psychological observations about her characters, but I think Gone Girl does this the best.

I was shocked by the big reveal on a first read, but that’s only one of many pleasures I keep finding in this novel as I return to it repeatedly. Nick and Amy are the ultimate dysfunctional couple and, in many ways, completely unlikable characters–yet I secretly love them both!

This book really set the bar for me in terms of psych thrillers. It has an ingenious plot and is one of the first genuinely shocking ‘Twist you don’t see coming’ books.

This book is so well-crafted, deliciously dark and manipulating, and, of course, so well-written. I was invested in both the main characters and constantly changed my mind about who I was routing for and what the truth really was. Bravo! 

First, I found the writing in this book phenomenal, especially the dialogue. I feel like each bit of dialogue revealed something new about the character or pulled me deeper into the plot. It’s witty and dark. Honest would be a good word to describe it.

The characters felt so human to me–simultaneously loveable and deplorable, true to human nature. But it was the twist midway through the novel that really drew me in—the shift in reality. It changed the book for me, molding it into something unique, something I’d never read before.

It’s a novel I come back to time… show more.

I loved reading this book like millions of others who made it such a blockbuster, best-selling book.

Many people assume this book was based on the sensational real-life case of missing Laci Peterson and her husband Scott (later convicted of murder.) Author Gillian Flynn–although agreeing there were parallels between the two stories has said her gripping, page-turning fictional novel about a cheating husband and a missing wife was not directly drawn from the Peterson story.

But she was still clearly inspired by that and other high-profile media cases like this that she covered as a journalist before becoming a crime… show more.

Yes, of course this is now a classic thriller. Still, I have to recommend it here because I love Gillian Flynn's writing style and how she structured her twists. Especially through the diary entries, you get very close to the main characters, and I could really empathize with everything. 

I was drawn deeper into the story and really wanted to solve the mystery of what happened to the wife. Then, it shocked me.

This book spoke to me on so many levels.

A failing marriage is dramatic enough, but the death of the spouse you’re no longer in love with? That amps things up. What about being blamed for it? Ratcheted higher still. Every time I thought I’d found the end of the drama, the author threw in a new twist.

This story was delightfully perverse (if there is such a thing), and when I read the end, I literally gasped—and it takes a lot to get that kind of reaction from me. This is “dysfunction” on steroids.

This book was a bestseller, and not only thanks to its clever plot.

The writing is terrific: sharp, fresh, witty, full of details that snag your attention. The characters are both quirky and fully dimensional. If you saw the movie but never read the book, please turn that around. I believe a novel is a film that unspools in your head: Your reading breathes life into the characters, your mind’s eye creates the action, the voice of the writer speaks inside you.

For me, a book has an intimacy a movie never can—and Flynn’s characters repay intimacy, even though it… show more.

This book truly terrified me, more than any horror has.

The human mind and the capabilities without a conscience left me feeling mentally sick. It had my own mind doing somersaults long after reading. As disturbing as it was, I found it difficult to put the book down. It’s definitely one you won’t forget.