Day 62 : Gone Girl - Book Review

"I am a great husband because I am very afraid she may kill me."

There aren't many books out there that have that one line which gives away the complete plot altogether.

This book is like the "How to Scare the Living Crap Out of your Husband, enough to Make Him Stay Married with You" manual for newlywed wives. Any person man/woman ought to read this once when they get that giddy feeling to get hitched to the one they are currently porking. Then sit and contemplate whether they are really smart enough to out-maneuver their spouses in matters of pure evil. This book would bring things into perspective.

Say what you must about the storyline - Amy Elliott Dunne is one craaazy conniving genius!

She is the best part of the book. And the flow and texture of the book will help you in keep coming back to her with more excitement. Like most Anti-Heroes of late, you will end up rooting for this villain.

There are parts/characters in the book that will stand out like a sore thumb though. Most of that has to do with the writer Gillian Flynn's incessant need to inject new-age feminism into every single page of this otherwise well-written book. If we were to remove the snarky male bashing paragraphs in the book, it'd probably come down by at least 200 odd pages. There is so much of this malice going on in the book that if you are a woman and have not really been affected by the misogynistic society in your life, by the end you'd feel like you've too got take up a placard and fight for your sisters around the world.

That is probably the only thing that'd make me want to not recommend this book to some people. The feminism thing stands out so much that you soon develop a detector for it and your mind quickly tends to skip over parts that calls out men on their bullshit. The writer has already told you that a zillion times, couldn't tell us more about how Amy plans to murder Desi or get back at Able Andie. I really did wish Ms Flynn had spent some time on fleshing out those parts of Amy's POVs. Those were some of the better parts of the book.

All in all it is a good book. Well thought out suspense and impressive lead characters. Read it along with the OST from the David Fincher movie, very apt.

P.S. - If you're reading this book now, you must've probably seen the movie. So I'd just let you know right away - THE MOVIE IS BETTER.

Book Review