Introduction: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Reading Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn is a great exercise in honing your problem solving skill. The book is masterfully written, filled with a lot of suspense. The end may surprise you, and at first it may seem disappointing, but when you think about it, that’s the only ending that the story could have – based on the characters. Although the book is thrilling and suspenseful, at 555 pages (paperback), it is over 100 pages too long for me, particularly with so many unlikable characters. Additionally, some parts of the story get dragged out too much. Originally published in 2012, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, is the author’s third book.
If you have been reading this blog for some time now, many of you know that when I read, I extract lessons that others would gloss over. I already mentioned that Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is a great problem solving book, but it also teaches you how to manage a project from start to finish. The story will keep your mind very busy.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn:
Bite-Sized Learning to Manage a Project
| Amy discovers that Nick is having an affair with Andie. She is not happy about it, so she creates the project to set-up her husband for killing her. | Is there a project that you would like to work on? |
| Let’s call the project, Revenging Amy: Let Nick Pay. | Write down the name of your project. |
| Amy lists all the tasks she has to do to make the project a success. Some of the tasks include staging her death, securing a getaway car, and securing money to live on when she disappears. | List all the tasks that are necessary to complete the project. What’s your back-up plan if things do not go as planned? What are the critical success factors complete the project? |
| She breaks down each tasks into activities to perform, so they are manageable. How will she stage her death? What’s the most believable method? How will she secure the getaway car so that the police cannot trace it? | Break down the tasks into activities. |
| She conducts research to determine how to perform all the activities. | Conduct research to determine how to perform all the activities. Do you need any skills that you have to acquire? |
| She creates a timeline to complete each activity. | Create a timeline to accomplish activities and tasks. |
| When she completes all the activities for a task, she checks it off. Amy does this until she completes all the tasks for Revenging Amy: Let Nick Pay. | Check off all activities and tasks as you complete them. |
The Story: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The two main characters in the story are husband and wife, Nick Dunne and Amy Elliot Dunne. In the first part of the book, the story is told from Nick’s and Amy’s point of view. But Nick tells the story from the present, while Amy tells it from the past. Nick and Amy are out of work writers living in New York City. After losing their jobs, Nick suggests that they move to his hometown, Carthage, Missouri. Amy is a city girl, who feels that Nick doesn’t give her an option on whether to move to the small town. When the two first meet, Amy is wealthy – her parents made a substantial amount of money from Amazing Amy, a book series closely based on her life.
On their fifth wedding anniversary, on July 5th, Amy goes missing. Each anniversary, she creates a treasure hunt for Nick to find his present. The clues are often too difficult for him to figure out where Amy expects him to go. On their fifth anniversary, before Amy goes missing, she creates the treasure hunt. As the story unfolds, the evidence piles up and Nick starts to look guilty. There are glimpses of who Amy is, and she is not who she pretends to be. Nick’s wife is missing, yet he doesn’t behave like someone who is traumatized by what has happened to his wife. He smiles inappropriately, and comes across as uncaring. You know he has a secret and from the clues, the reader realizes that he is cheating on his missing wife.
Nick is in a relationship with Andie, a needy and clingy young woman. The reader has to question Nick’s motives for being with her. Andie is young and self-centered, refusing to accept the seriousness of Nick’s situation, and keeps on contacting him. When Nick realizes the seriousness of his situation, he hires a lawyer, who is a lawyer of last resort. This makes him look guiltier. The lawyer explains to his client that he has to stop seeing Andie, while Amy is missing. When he is breaking off with Andie, Nick is trying to manage her, and any possible fallout, but she recognizes what he is doing. Andie is not happy and bites him in his face.
Nick first misinterprets the clues Amy leaves for him to find the treasure hunt. Eventually he realizes that Amy found out about the affair and each clue leads to a place where he took his mistress. It’s masterful the lengths that Amy goes to set-up Nick, and the reader sees her state of mind. For instance, she buys a lot of stuff on a credit card that’s in his name, then she stores them in a shed behind his sister’s house. This is one of the places where he took Andie to have sex with her. Prior to finding the location where Amy stored all the stuff she purchased, the detectives showed him the credit card statement of all the purchases. It baffled him because he didn’t make any of those purchases. He tries to explain to the detectives, but they do not believe him.
In the second part of the book, this time, Amy tells the story from the present. This section reveals major plots in the story, and the reader gets a taste of how twisted Amy is. She is the star of every show. Amy is the queen of dispensing punishment to those who she perceived wrongs her. She is not Amazing Amy; she is Revengeful Amy. In a motel where she is staying, two would-be friends – Jeff and Greta – rob her of the over $8,000 she has.
Amy finds herself in a desperate situation because she has no money. She contacts Desi, her first boyfriend, who is still in love and obsessed with her. Amy’s intent is to get money from Desi, so she can disappear again. She cooks up a story about why she goes missing to get his sympathy. She believes that she is capable of managing Desi, but much to her surprise, it’s the other way around. Amy finds herself a prisoner in his Lakeside home. Being methodical, in no time, she plans her escape, as well as the accompanying story to explain her disappearance.
While Amy is away, the police arrests Nick and he spends some time in jail. They release him temporarily until his trial. Nick tries to think the way Amy does, so even though he no longer loves her or wants to be married to her, he appeals to her vanity. When he makes appearances on TV, or videos, he tells her how much he loves her, apologizes for the affair, and tells her that he will make it up to her. When he entreats her, Amy second guesses herself, and starts to change her mind about making Nick take the fall. One night, Amy returns home and expects to pick up the pieces. Nick has to manage the situation. He tells Amy that she has to confess everything she did. But she is very clever, he has to strip, she searches him to make sure that she is not wearing any wires. And if that is not enough, she confesses in the shower with the water running.
Conclusion: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Most people will find the ending of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn unsatisfying and anticlimactic. The end will make many people angry. As I said before, based on the characters, and how they behaved in the past, that’s the only way the story could end. Although the story is well-written, a page turner in many sections, thrilling and suspenseful, it was too long, and I ended up feeling that I should have spent the time reading books to satisfy the requirements of the Read the World Challenge. Not a good feeling to have. On the plus side though, for those who like mysteries and thrillers, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn may be just the book for them.
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Sharp Objects
Dark PlacesGone GirlThe Grownup: A Story by the Author of Gone Girl (Kindle Single)The Couple Next Door: A NovelThe Complete Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl, Dark Places, Sharp Objects
