Reviews
"Flynn cements her place among that elite group of mystery/thriller writers who unfailingly deliver the goods...Once again Flynn has written an intelligent, gripping tour de force, mixing a riveting plot and psychological intrigue with a compelling prose style that unobtrusively yet forcefully carries the reader from page to page." Library Journal (starred review) " Gone Girl is one of the best and most frightening portraits of psychopathy I''ve ever read. Nick and Amy manipulate each other with savage, merciless and often darkly witty dexterity. This is a wonderful and terrifying book about how the happy surface normality and the underlying darkness can become too closely interwoven to separate." Tana French , New York Times bestselling author of Faithful Place and Into the Woods "The plot has it all. I have no doubt that in a year's time I'm going to be saying that this is my favorite novel of 2012. Brilliant." Kate Atkinson , New York Times bestselling author of Started Early, Took My Dog and Case Histories " Gone Girl builds on the extraordinary achievements of Gillian Flynn''s first two books and delivers the reader into the claustrophobic world of a failing marriage. We all know the story, right? Beautiful wife disappears; husband doesn''t seem as distraught as he should be under the circumstances. But Flynn takes this sturdy trope of the 24-hour news cycle and turns it inside out, providing a devastating portrait of a marriage and a timely, cautionary tale about an age in which everyone''s dreams seem to be imploding." Laura Lippman , New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing and I'd Know You Anywhere "Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl is like Scenes from a Marriage remade by Alfred Hitchcock, an elaborate trap that's always surprising and full of characters who are entirely recognizable. It's a love story wrapped in a mystery that asks the eternal question of all good relationships gone bad: How did we get from there to here?" Adam Ross , New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Peanut "Just this minute I finished a week of feeling betrayed, misled, manipulated, provoked, and misjudged, not to mention having all my expectations confounded. Considering how compulsively I kept coming back for more, I am seriously thinking of going back to page one and doing it all again." Arthur Phillips , author of The Tragedy of Arthur "I cannot say this urgently enough: you have to read Gone Girl . It's as if Gillian Flynn has mixed us a martini using battery acid instead of vermouth and somehow managed to make it taste really, really good. Gone Girl is delicious and intoxicating and delightfully poisonous. It's smart (brilliant, actually). It's funny (in the darkest possible way). The writing is jarringly good, and the story is, well...amazing. Read the book and you''ll discover-among many other treasures-just how much freight (and fright) that last adjective can bear." Scott Smith , New York Times bestselling author of The Ruins and A Simple Plan "Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl reminds me of Patricia Highsmith at the top of her game. With Gone Girl , she's placed herself at the top of the short list of authors who have mastered the art of crafting a tense story with terrifyingly believable characters." Karin Slaughter , New York Times bestselling author of Fallen " Gone Girl manages to be so many stellar things all at once-suspenseful, inventive, chilling, funny, unsettling-as well as beautifully plotted and fiercely well-written. Gillian Flynn is a thrilling writer." Kate Christensen , author of The Great Man , " Gone Girl is one of the best and most frightening portraits of psychopathy I've ever read. Nick and Amy manipulate each other with savage, merciless and often darkly witty dexterity. This is a wonderful and terrifying book about how the happy surface normality and the underlying darkness can become too closely interwoven to separate." Tana French , New York Times bestselling author of Faithful Place and Into the Woods "The plot has it all. I have no doubt that in a year's time I'm going to be saying that this is my favorite novel of 2012. Brilliant." Kate Atkinson , New York Times bestselling author of Started Early, Took My Dog and Case Histories " Gone Girl builds on the extraordinary achievements of Gillian Flynn's first two books and delivers the reader into the claustrophobic world of a failing marriage. We all know the story, right? Beautiful wife disappears; husband doesn't seem as distraught as he should be under the circumstances. But Flynn takes this sturdy trope of the 24-hour news cycle and turns it inside out, providing a devastating portrait of a marriage and a timely, cautionary tale about an age in which everyone's dreams seem to be imploding." Laura Lippman , New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing and I'd Know You Anywhere "Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl is like Scenes from a Marriage remade by Alfred Hitchcock, an elaborate trap that's always surprising and full of characters who are entirely recognizable. It's a love story wrapped in a mystery that asks the eternal question of all good relationships gone bad: How did we get from there to here?" Adam Ross , New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Peanut "Just this minute I finished a week of feeling betrayed, misled, manipulated, provoked, and misjudged, not to mention having all my expectations confounded. Considering how compulsively I kept coming back for more, I am seriously thinking of going back to page one and doing it all again." Arthur Phillips , author of The Tragedy of Arthur "I cannot say this urgently enough: you have to read Gone Girl . It's as if Gillian Flynn has mixed us a martini using battery acid instead of vermouth and somehow managed to make it taste really, really good. Gone Girl is delicious and intoxicating and delightfully poisonous. It's smart (brilliant, actually). It's funny (in the darkest possible way). The writing is jarringly good, and the story is, well...amazing. Read the book and you'll discover-among many other treasures-just how much freight (and fright) that last adjective can bear." Scott Smith , New York Times bestselling author of The Ruins and A Simple Plan "Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl reminds me of Patricia Highsmith at the top of her game. With Gone Girl , she's placed herself at the top of the short list of authors who have mastered the art of crafting a tense story with terrifyingly believable characters." Karin Slaughter , New York Times bestselling author of Fallen "Flynn cements her place among that elite group of mystery/thriller writers who unfailingly deliver the goods...Once again Flynn has written an intelligent, gripping tour de force, mixing a riveting plot and psychological intrigue with a compelling prose style that unobtrusively yet forcefully carries the reader from page to page." Library Journal (starred review), " Gone Girl is one of the best and most frightening portraits of psychopathy I've ever read. Nick and Amy manipulate each other with savage, merciless and often darkly witty dexterity. This is a wonderful and terrifying book about how the happy surface normality and the underlying darkness can become too closely interwoven to separate." TANA FRENCH , New York Times bestselling author of Faithful Place and Into the Woods "The plot has it all. I have no doubt that in a year's time I'm going to be saying that this is my favorite novel of 2012. Brilliant." KATE ATKINSON , New York Times bestselling author of Started Early, Took My Dog and Case Histories " Gone Girl builds on the extraordinary achievements of Gillian Flynn's first two books and delivers the reader into the claustrophobic world of a failing marriage. We all know the story, right? Beautiful wife disappears; husband doesn't seem as distraught as he should be under the circumstances. But Flynn takes this sturdy trope of the 24-hour news cycle and turns it inside out, providing a devastating portrait of a marriage and a timely, cautionary tale about an age in which everyone's dreams seem to be imploding." LAURA LIPPMAN , New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing and I'd Know You Anywhere "Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl is like Scenes from a Marriage remade by Alfred Hitchcock, an elaborate trap that's always surprising and full of characters who are entirely recognizable. It's a love story wrapped in a mystery that asks the eternal question of all good relationships gone bad: How did we get from there to here?" ADAM ROSS , New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Peanut, "Absorbing . . . In masterly fashion, Flynn depicts the unraveling of a marriage--and of a recession-hit Midwest--by interweaving the wife''s diary entries with the husband''s first-person account." -- The New Yorker "Ms. Flynn writes dark suspense novels that anatomize violence without splashing barrels of blood around the pages . . . Ms. Flynn has much more up her sleeve than a simple missing-person case. As Nick and Amy alternately tell their stories, marriage has never looked so menacing, narrators so unreliable." -- The Wall Street Journal "The story unfolds in precise and riveting prose . . . even while you know you''re being manipulated, searching for the missing pieces is half the thrill of this wickedly absorbing tale." -- O: The Oprah Magazine "Ice-pick-sharp . . . spectacularly sneaky . . . impressively cagey . . . Gone Girl is Ms. Flynn''s dazzling breakthrough. It is wily, mercurial, subtly layered and populated by characters so well imagined that they''re hard to part with." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times "An ingenious and viperish thriller . . . Even as Gone Girl grows truly twisted and wild, it says smart things about how tenuous power relations are between men and women, and how often couples are at the mercy of forces beyond their control. As if that weren''t enough, Flynn has created a genuinely creepy villain you don''t see coming. People love to talk about the banality of evil. You''re about to meet a maniac you could fall in love with." -- Jeff Giles, Entertainment Weekly "An irresistible summer thriller with a twisting plot worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. Burrowing deep into the murkiest corners of the human psyche, this delectable summer read will give you the creeps and keep you on edge until the last page." --People (four stars) "It''s simply fantastic: terrifying, darkly funny and at times moving. . . . [ Gone Girl is] her most intricately twisted and deliciously sinister story, dangerous for any reader who prefers to savor a novel as opposed to consuming it whole in one sitting." --Michelle Weiner, Associated Press "Gillian Flynn''s third novel is both breakneck-paced thriller and masterful dissection of marital breakdown. . . . Wickedly plotted and surprisingly thoughtful, this is a terrifically good read." -- The Boston Globe " Gone Girl is that rare thing: a book that thrills and delights while holding up a mirror to how we live. . . . Through her two ultimately unreliable narrators, Flynn masterfully weaves the slow trickle of critical details with 90-degree plot turns. . . . Timely, poignant and emotionally rich, Gone Girl will peel away your comfort levels even as you root for its protagonists--despite your best intuition." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Gillian Flynn''s barbed and brilliant Gone Girl has two deceitful, disturbing, irresistible narrators and a plot that twists so many times you''ll be dizzy." -- Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Flynn is a master manipulator, deftly fielding multiple unreliable narrators, sardonic humor, and social satire in a story of a marriage gone wrong that makes black comedies like The War of the Roses and Who''s Afraid of Virginia Woolf look like scenes from a honeymoon. . . . It is, in a word, amazing." --Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor " Gone Girl [is] a thriller with an insane twist and an insidiously realistic take on marriage." -- New York "Brilliantly constructed and consistently absorbing . . . The novel, which twists itself into new shapes, works as a page-turning thriller, but it''s also a study of marriage at its most destructive." -- The Columbus Dispatch
Synopsis
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The "mercilessly entertaining" ( Vanity Fair ) instant classic "about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships" (Lev Grossman, Time "One of the Best Books of the Decade") ONE OF TIME 'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME, ONE OF CNN'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE, AND ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY 'S BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Janet Maslin, The New York Times, People, Entertainment Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Kansas City Star, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge . Under mounting pressure from the police and the media--as well as Amy's fiercely doting parents--the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter--but is he really a killer? ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, HuffPost, Newsday, #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The "mercilessly entertaining" ( Vanity Fair ) instant classic "about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships" (Lev Grossman, Time ). NAMED ONE OF TIME ' S TEN BEST FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE AND ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY ' S BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Janet Maslin, The New York Times - People - Entertainment Weekly - O: The Oprah Magazine - Slate - Kansas City Star - USA Today - Christian Science Monitor On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge . Under mounting pressure from the police and the media--as well as Amy's fiercely doting parents--the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter--but is he really a killer? NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY San Francisco Chronicle - St. Louis Post Dispatch - Chicago Tribune - HuffPost - Newsday "Absorbing . . . In masterly fashion, Flynn depicts the unraveling of a marriage--and of a recession-hit Midwest--by interweaving the wife's diary entries with the husband's first-person account." -- New Yorker "Ms. Flynn writes dark suspense novels that anatomize violence without splashing barrels of blood around the pages . . . Ms. Flynn has much more up her sleeve than a simple missing-person case. As Nick and Amy alternately tell their stories, marriage has never looked so menacing, narrators so unreliable." -- The Wall Street Journal "The story unfolds in precise and riveting prose . . . even while you know you're being manipulated, searching for the missing pieces is half the thrill of this wickedly absorbing tale." -- O: The Oprah Magazine, #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The "mercilessly entertaining" ( Vanity Fair ) instant classic "about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships" (Lev Grossman, Time "One of the Best Books of the Decade") ONE OF TIME 'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME, ONE OF CNN'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE, AND ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY 'S BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Janet Maslin, The New York Times, People, Entertainment Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Kansas City Star, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge . Under mounting pressure from the police and the media--as well as Amy's fiercely doting parents--the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter--but is he really a killer? ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, HuffPost, Newsday
