June 13, 2013 / Leslie

Review – Audiobook: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn
Narrated by Julia Whelan, Kirby Heyborne

Genre: Suspense / Mystery
Publisher: Random House Audio
Publish Date: May 25, 2012
Format: Audio, 19 hours | 11 minutes
Audio Listening Level: Easy
Rating: 4 of 5

Publisher’s Synopsis:

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 from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. 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?

My Thoughts:

This was a hot read last year and a book that landed on many people’s favorite book list. I finally got around to reading it because my book club chose it as their June read. Did it live up to all the hype? Yes and No. Mostly yes.

The story was easy to get lost in. It was well-written and tightly plotted, a riveting psychological thriller. The story was told by Amy and Nick in alternating narrative. Nick begins in the present with Amy’s disappearance while Amy starts further back in time, giving us a view of her dysfunctional childhood. Eventually the timelines converge and we get a somewhat clearer idea of what is going on, or so we believe.

I’m assuming many of you know the plot or have already read the book. This is a difficult book to discuss in any detail without giving up spoilers so I’ll try to be vague. While I enjoy a story that’s complex with multiple shifts in direction, I also like a few valid clues so I can attempt to figure out what is actually happening. I was doing fine for the first half of the story, but then things began to take some very weird turns and I felt the author was manipulating the reader a little too much. Unless Amy (and the reader) had a crystal ball, there was no way she could have foreseen and planned so well for a couple of situations.

Most of the characters were unlikable; not just Nick and Amy, but also her parents and many of the people we meet along the way. Often when I can’t relate to at least one main character I can’t engage in the story and eventually give up on the book. That didn’t happen this time. These people were so despicable it made for a compelling read and I had to find out what was going to happen next.

One of the ways I judge how much I liked a book is by how long it took me to listen to it. This one was about 19 hours long and it only took me a few days. The audio production was easy to listen to. It was performed with two narrators, one for each point of view. Having two distinct voices made it much easier to follow than having one person alternate between a male and female voice (a pet peeve of mine).

Now about that ending. I didn’t particularly like it but it didn’t surprise me. Most of the book club didn’t like the ending either but everyone liked the book to varying degrees. We also agreed that Amy was a sociopath and Nick was co-dependent, and that they deserved each other.