Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
How does one review a book that they hated the first 95%? A psychological thriller that contains many twists and turns, Gone Girl is a strange compilation of he-said, she-said narrations that have the reader shake their head in confusion about who to ultimately believe.
As I said, I did not like the story for the most part, partially because of the choices the author made in developing the characters. For one, the reader is led down a path of disliking the first “main” character, then enlightened about the other “main” character, who we are supposed to dislike? Pity? Feel rage towards? The idea of playing with the story in order to show the depth and even disturbance of the human psyche was a great plus in this story, but it left nothing for the reader to anchor their belief and trust, someone they can join on this journey through the story and invest emotionally in the unfolding of the plot.
The plot itself is just a huge tangle of twists and “surprises”. It becomes difficult to follow the narration and at certain points throughout these twists just seem over done and desperate to collect more exasperated gasps from the reader.
All in all, I should point out to a potential reader to abandon their expectation to find a compact, concise story. Once this is accomplished, the presentation of a person’s psychological depth and capabilities provide the intrigue to keep a reader enthralled.
Personally, the first 30% of the book felt mediocre, but I was willing to continue. At about 50% the pace picked up and I was convinced this book would have a thrilling and intense conclusion, but by 60% I couldn’t care less about the story anymore and was only reading on in order to see how the author chose to end this tangled mess. Only at 95% was I of the opinion that this was actually a decent story, if only I had suspended my hope for an ordinary novel.
It was different, it was bizarre and absolutely not what I expected, but it somehow worked. I would recommend this book to anyone, who is in search of something out of the ordinary.
