Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

My experience with reading Gone Girl was long and sporadic. I got the book from my library's 7-Day Checkout shelf back in July, then returned it unread because I didn't want to read anything disturbing. I put my name in the hold queue (#65 of 65) and forgot about it. Then in December it showed up again on the 7-Day shelf, but I had to stop reading 90 pages before the end because I have a very wibbly relationship with time. And then 2 days ago, my turn in the queue came up and I got to finish the book, so yay serendipity?

Megs has read this, and so has Alice. I think mostly everyone has? But for those of you who have not, I am declaring this post AND the comments a Safe Zone for Spoilers, because  I want to talk about the rampant Whiskey Tango Foxtrot that happened in this book and no one else has been able to do it.

You've been warned.

All right, People Who Are Left. What a roller coaster ride that was. I think I might have whiplash. 

First, we sympathize with Amy because she’s smart and trying so hard, isn’t she? How sad it is that her relationship is so different from how it seemed. And then BAM! Somewhere around page 140 we find out she’s the elected president of the Democratic Republic of Liarland and we start to sympathize more with Nick, who after all isn’t really thaaaaat bad. And then Desi comes along and we’re like, holy shitballs, that guy has a Bates complex and his Mommy Dearest is a little overbearing, isnt’t she? But he’s not sooooo bad – just a minor character who’s a little obsessed, and who hasn’t been a little obsessed with someone, y’know? Remember when she threw herself down the stairs?

And then Amy gets robbed and we’re like, YES! You deserved that, you whorecrux! And then… wow Desi ends up being cah-razy. Like, Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood crazy, drinking milkshakes out of other people’s yards and such, and we think, maybe Amy’s not so awful that she deserves THIS.

And meantime, Nick is planning to kill her when she comes back and we still kind of think she deserves it a little, but she shows up and then we think she pretty much DEFINITELY deserves it, that crazy bitch. And then we’re not sure who is awfuler, but maybe Nick will get out of there and Amy will go to jail because she murdered someone in cold blood and faked rape wounds now we have to feel sorry for that crazy, horrible mother about her crazy, horrible son, which is distinctly uncomfortable.  

BUT she does not go to jail because Nick decides to stop pursuing this line of thought because – oh my sweet nutbar Aunt Matchi, you guys, the Crazy Train stops twice a day in this town – Amy is preggers despite them not having sex for eeeehver. She is a psychopath whom I have to admire a little – that bitch thinks of everything. 

And in the end, I was strangely satisfied that they ended up together because that amount of sociopathy should NOT be loose upon the world at large. 

8 out of 11 Romantic Treasure Hunts