Book Review: Gone Girl

By Lea Cohen

Gone Girl, without a doubt, is a book guaranteed to greatly subvert your expectations. For the first half of the book, I felt as if I had at least the core elements of the plot figured out. The main character–Amy–goes missing, and her husband is the top suspect of the murder. Although throughout the book’s entirety, I did feel a bit of uncertainty about the simplicity of this narrative, I still was thoroughly surprised by the first plot twist as well as the many that would follow it. Gone Girl continuously surprised me and left me with a desire to deeply contemplate my feelings afterwards.

Gone Girl was chosen as the NRHS Book Club read for the month of February, and the discussion about the book was held on Friday, March 1. Many students gathered around in a circle to discuss their thoughts, feelings and possible questions regarding the book and its meaning. 

Readers are immediately introduced to Amy and Nick–a married couple. One day, Nick returns home and notices his wife is nowhere to be found, with a seemingly violent scene inside. From here, Nick is eventually chosen as the most probable suspect. The story follows Nick’s perspective in the present while Amy has gone missing, along with the perspective of Amy’s diary entries. Yet, about halfway through the book, we find out Amy’s current-day perspective: alive and in hiding. In actuality, Amy had run into hiding after meticulously planning for years to frame her husband for her murder. She had planted evidence against him in front of the police after finding out about his infidelity. However, the story took another turn as Amy decided to return, framing someone else for her “kidnapping” and returning to Nick as a “loving wife”. Nick was not enthused and unsuccessfully attempted to have Amy put in jail. Nick chooses to leave his “psychopathic” wife, but she, of course, had a plan for this as well. She manufactured her own pregnancy on the off chance that Nick would attempt to leave her, causing him to stay with her or forever be deemed an absent father, after he had already experienced the hardships of having a distant father his entire life.

The first half of the book, although admittedly maybe a bit drawn out and predictable, was a vital factor in building the excitement of the plot twist. I would say that Gone Girl is a book almost entirely rooted in subverting preconceived expectations garnered by readers. Although Amy’s diary entries in the first half of the book were, at many times, annoying, entitled or obnoxious, they still created sympathy for Amy’s character. Her love for Nick was clear, and his lack of effort in their marriage was evident. One of the most interesting aspects of Gone Girl were the sympathies and feelings I ended up having towards the characters in the book and how much these feelings transformed as I continued reading. At the end of the book, I was left with a feeling of dissatisfaction. Yet, it wasn’t a dissatisfaction that made me regret reading the book or even dislike it; this dissatisfaction was with the characters themselves, as if they were real people I had read news about and didn’t wish to take either side of. It is not often that a book causes the reader to end with distaste for both main characters. Gone Girl demolishes the expectations and cliches of true crime or mystery/thriller novels by removing the concept of a “antagonist” or “protagonist”. In my opinion, no one in this story ends up presenting as a likable character. Additionally, no character seems to even view themselves as likable at the end. Nick and Amy both seem to acknowledge that they “complete each other in the worst way possible”, causing them to never be able to experience a healthy relationship with anyone, no matter the person. They realize that they need each other due to their flawed characters. Both characters seemed to have ruined each other with their perceptions of the world, relationships and self-identity. 

The extent of Nick and Amy’s mental sanity is another complex element of this book. It is most simple to write off both characters as “insane” or as “psychopaths”, but it seems that there is more to them. Amy’s parents made their fortune from writing their “Amazing Amy” book series, completely modeled based on the “real” Amy’s life and presenting the main character, Amy, as perfect in every facet of her life. This put a standard in place for the existing Amy’s life that was detrimental to her personality and perception of the world. She dedicated her life to putting on a facade in order to be viewed by others exactly like the perfect Amy from her parents’ book series. She had multiple experiences at a younger age in which friends or love interests discovered the true, manipulative Amy-persona, causing her to enact insane plans to destroy their lives. She made sure to leave no holes in her intricate framings, leaving her victims' lives in ruin. Despite this, Amy’s plans would always make her out to be the sympathetically adored victim by everyone in her life. The perpetual victim mentality Amy possessed increased her psychotic action. She had to be seen in a perfect light by those around her at all times. This notion of perfection was forged directly due to the creation of the “Amazing Amy”. Instead of completely writing off Amy’s existence simply as insane or intrinsically evil, her character can be analyzed with more complexity. In reality, it is important to consider the fact that there may be two Amys in existence. Whether or not we ever really see Amy for her true self is debatable in it of itself. She claims to put on a fake persona at all times, but is her “true” psychopathic personality her real one either? Could that personality have been created as a direct cause of the intrinsically impossible standards set for her at all times? It is possible that Amy, unintentionally or not, created her own fake version of herself in an attempt to present herself in absolute perfection. The Amy in real life exists in the same way the fictional “Amazing Amy” exists. Are either Amy’s “real”? Gone Girl does an exceptional job at raising complex questions such as these. Amy is not just an “insane” person, nor is she a likable one. Her actions are unfathomable, yet her execution and commitment to her plans is extremely impressive. The circumstances of her life may be an important explanation for her seemingly unexplainable perception of herself and society.

Nick, likewise, is quite a complex character. My experience with him changed constantly throughout the book. From Amy’s diary entries–which turned out to be another fake component  of her plan–I gained an initial distaste for Nick. I then discovered Amy’s plan, which is when I began to feel sympathy for Nick’s situation. Following this, Nick’s ongoing infidelity with one of his students was revealed, which again made me almost hate his character. As Amy’s insanity progressed and Nick’s misogyny and unappealing traits grew more apparent, I came to my final conclusion of general dissatisfaction. Yet, Nick also should not be written off simply as psychotic or unable to be understood. His father was an extremely abusive and misogynistic man, causing him to instead look up to his mother, who ended up passing away. Many of Nick’s flaws can be traced back to his father, as it seemed he had both subconsciously picked up many of his traits, while he also possessed many negative attributes due to his attempt to stray as far away from his father as possible. In trying to act in a polar opposite manner to his father, Nick ends up manufacturing much of his personality: somewhat similar to Amy’s manufactured personality. He distances himself from his father in such an extreme and cold way, producing a cold and aggressive personality within himself. His unresolved feelings of anger towards his father are often reflected in himself and his lack of care for those around him, especially Amy. His flaws manifest themself within his relationship with Amy, and her flaws come into play in reaction to his decisions. 

Gone Girl is a book that covers an extensive list of intricate topics and identifies complexities within these issues. The book discusses the job recession, complex parental relationships, Nick and Amy’s inability to form true friendships, issues within police investigations and the justice system, feminism, false personal portrayals, true crime “cliches”, the forced disingenuous role of women created in order to please male desires, paranoia, the rapid transformation of public opinion through media consumption, and much more. The author, Gillian Flynn, seems to have no specific desires for the way her audience should view these characters and their circumstances, providing an awfully unique reading experience. She creates space for infinite debate regarding almost every portion of the book. Although, like every book, there are flaws that can be identified within the writing and execution of the narrative, the book still proves itself to be excitingly unpredictable and interesting to follow. Gone Girl is an extremely entertaining read that is sure to avert all expectations before and even during its reading. It will leave all readers with an important lack of understanding of their own feelings regarding what they have read, causing them to inquire further. It is a unique function of a book: to be able to leave readers not with a clear satisfaction towards one obvious positive or negative resolution, and instead provide an open-ended resolution that requires the reader to truly contemplate the book.