Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl When I had heard that New York Times’ Crime Columnist, Marilyn Stasio, had written about former Entertainment Weekly critic, Gillian Flynn’s newest thriller, the best-selling crime novel of the summer, Gone Girl, I was compelled to see what she had written. Stasio begins by setting Flynn’s newest piece on a pedestal of literary genius. Her use of the English language made it as tempting as bait to a fish: “Gillian Flynn’s latest novel of psychological suspense will confound anyone trying to keep up with her quicksilver mind and diabolical rules of play. She goes on later in the article to comment of her fearless ability to strip dense pretenses from her characters and lay them bare across the pages of the novel for all her readers to see. I was sold at “psychological. ” The article commends the author on her clever usage of a double narration technique. This, ties in with Flynn’s supposed unique ability which allows us, the readers, to closely view the elaborate maze of a book that she has created. If you don’t pay attention to where everything is headed, you’ll be lost before you can flip the page.
The specific uses of the two narrators (who are also the main characters) are one of the only things that I agree upon with Stasio. One of the narrators gives us his confused perspective of the main plot which only leads us to a red herring. We are fed a selective amount and quality of information that creates a neon sign in our head that says, “HE KILLED HER. ” The other narrator, just as useful, gives us disturbing accounts of events that, as Stasio says, are “instances of marital discord [that] might flare into a homicidal rage. If nothing else reeled me in, the words “homicidal” and “rage” definitely led me to believe the story would inevitably lead to a climactic ending that mirrored something that could only be found in a Saw movie. I was left as a man is left disappointed at an altar. I felt as if I had wasted a good portion of my life on something that didn’t deserve to scrape dirt off the bottom of my shoes. The story turned out to be one of those classic rich girl abductions where she is returned unharmed as if nothing ever happened.
And as an added twist, she turns out to be an attention craving psychopath with problems that stem from her perfect parents who are successful writers. The subject of every one of their stories is based off their daughter. Anything she does wrong, the subject of their book does correctly. This is one of many things that should have led to a gut-wrenching finish, but instead led to one homicide and a cliff hanger that could mean absolutely anything: “I really truly wish he hadn’t said that.

I keep thinking about it. I can’t stop. / I don’t have anything else to add I just wanted to make sure I had the last word. I think I’ve earned that” (Gone Girl 430). After finishing the first chapter of the novel, I realized that Stasio had summarized all of it in the second paragraph of her article. This epiphany was followed by another brutal five chapters of pre-examined reading. Stasio might not realize it but, she has taken away the only pleasure one could have from reading this novel.
The beginning is so innocently written that you would think that our main character could never kill his wife, no matter all the evidence that piled up. It would be possible to ignore the smile he gives the press when they told them about his wife. It would be possible to ignore him increasing his wife’s life insurance before she disappears. It would be possible to ignore his young and pretty girlfriend. But you simply cannot ignore Stasio’s plot spoiling review. “Diabolical…underhanded…trickery…devilish way” are all words Stasio uses to describe Flynn’s new novel.
The only word I can come up with to describe Stasio’s article is “hypocrite! ” Stasio’s perspective on the novel seems filled with excitement and satisfaction, but the truth is upon closer inspection, you can tell that she really couldn’t find anything kind to say, (not that I blame her). My problem with it was how she led me to believe the book would be worth spending valuable time reading. Truth be told, I would rather jump off a bridge. It would definitely be more thrilling than Gone Girl. Maybe Stasio could lead them to believe someone pushed me.