***GONE GIRL CUPCAKES***


*****UPDATE 3/26/2013*****
See bottom of review. I think I need to re-think this oppositional review.
***UPDATE 3/31/2013***
See comment #181 below...not changing my mind about the book, remaining open to the writer's work.

Rating: 0.5* of five

The Book Report: The book description says:
Marriage can be a real killer.
One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time,New York Timesbestseller Gillian Flynn takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdo More...

Marguerite Yourcenar wrote long ago that "the mask, given time, comes to be the face itself." This can work for good or bad, but the more hideous the secrets, the more carefully that mask is constructed. So what if you discovered after five years of marriage that you'd only seen the mask, and never the real face of your spouse? Once those dark truths were revealed, could you stay married to that person?

Knowledge is power, and never more so than in an intimate relationship.
What if your spouse kn More...

Gone Girl is astounding. It is a gripping story of the courtship and marriage of a narcissist and a sociopath. They appear to be experiencing the normal setbacks of life during our recent financial meltdown: job loss, relocation, mounting debt, family illness etc. etc. It is easy to identify with them individually, which makes it harder to know who to root for when the wife disappears on the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary and the husband becomes the prime suspect. Neither seems to be More...

Twisty like a pretzel, dark like unadulterated chocolate, and as compelling as a twisted car wreck, this thriller delivers! On their fifth anniversary, Nick and Amy's marriage implodes when Amy goes missing and Nick is hardly as distraught as he ought to be. Too much plot summary would detract from the pleasure of reading the book for yourself. Suffice it to say, this is one psychological mind bender accompanied by witty, incisive, laser beam writing; if you like that type of thriller, this one More...

As seen on The Readventurer

I am giving Gone Girl 3 stars, but only begrudgingly. In my mind, any book that takes me 3 months and 20 different tries to read is not worth 3 (i-liked-it on Goodreads) stars, especially a book written by an author I already respect. And I am not kidding, for me the first half of Gone Girl was a PURE TORTURE to read.

Amy Dunn disappears on the day of her 5th wedding anniversary. All gradually uncovered evidence suggests that her husband, Nick, is somehow involved. Did More...

Reading this in first person narrative meant being in the thoughts of 2 very sick people the whole book and it left me feeling yucky. I actually didn't find anything that happened a surprise. The author did seem to understand the mind of a sadistic, narcissistic sociopath. (scary thought)
The story was boring which may have been because I didn't like or care about either of the unrepentant, unenlightened, and self absorbed characters. I just couldn't relate. Even getting some background on their More...

This book was just way too much fun – and I mean that in a good way. I’m taking a leisurely drive down the garden path of the story, when BAM – right in the middle it makes a u-turn and we are on the damn highway doing 90 miles an hour (commonly referred to as a plot twist). Sweet Mother of Mercy!

There is not much to say without the risk of giving up some detail that’s best left secret. Soooo many time I wanted to just take one little peek at the end to see what happens to Nick and Amy. But I di More...

I'm pretty selective about new releases, but Gone Girl's opening (about a man studying his wife's skull in bed) and unique alternating POV structure promised a kind of He Said, She Said Crimes and Misdemeanors, a The Secret History with a sense of humor. I did really like the structure, along with some of the zingers, and some of the saucier images, but that's about it.

From the Kushner epigraph to the name checking of Noel Coward on page 68 to the use of Pygmalion as a verb 20 pages after that ( More...

3 1/2 stars.

This is going to be a hard review to write because I feel so conflicted about my final rating and just how much I actually liked this book. For one thing, I think the second half is a big improvement on the first half and, though this is my least favourite book by Ms Flynn, I can see in some ways why other reviewers see this as her strongest work.

Let me ask this question: is it possible to be objective when writing a book review? Can a book ever be objectively "good", even though so More...

I have a confession to make. One that may make a pariah amongst all right-thinking book readers and reviewers.

I often read the back couple of pages long before the end of the book.

It’s a very old habit, and one that I’ve never been able to entirely break. (And since I read about a study that claimed that people who participate in this shameful practice still get the same enjoyment out of books as those who don’t, I haven’t worried about it too much.)

So, in reading Gone Girl, about 30 pages in, I More...

I've been completely fangirling over Gillian Flynn since her debut Sharp Objects six years ago. It remains one of my all-time-favorites, along with Flynn's sophomore novel Dark Places. No one writes the inner workings of warped and damaged human psychology better than this woman. With complete conviction I place her in the same category alongside the likes of Flannery O'Connor and Shirley Jackson. Flynn has a devilish, uncanny flair for creating memorable characters and twisty plots that drive d More...

Mr. Peanut
The Seducer/The Conqueror/The Discoverer
Threats

and now this.

all of them are amazing stories about a wife gone missing or murdered, and the husband's journey through grief and suspicion with a bevvy of unreliable narrators. i'm actually not some sicko who is drawn to stories of murdered women, but these happen to be exceptional books that are strikingly similar in the way they unspool, and - yeah - they all have the same central action.

every single one of them is a twisty-turny narrativ More...

That was my immediate reaction after finishing this book. Pretty clearly that's not how it ends. It doesn't END that way. Yet, when I tapped Shadow's screen to turn the page (Shadow's my Nook's name, FYI) - there were only acknowledgements.

And then I thought about it... I gave it just a few minutes' thought, and I decided that I thought the ending was appropriate. Fucked up? Oh my, yes. But fitting too, in a way. We do dig our own graves, don't we?

This book kind of reminded of Lemarchand's Box More...

The days that came after Amy's disappearance
her cell phone was to be monitored, her photo circulated, her credit cards tracked. Known sex offenders in the area were to be interviewed. Neighborhood canvassed and her home phone tapped for any forthcoming ransom demands. Routine procedure when a person goes missing in this manner. The eyes of suspicion immediately fell on her husband. The search is on all they need now is her physical person and the guilty. In the search for truth, lies, cheating More...

A copy of Gone Girl was provided to me by Netgalley/Crown Publishing Group for review purposes.

On the day of Nick and Amy's five year wedding anniversary Nick comes home to find the door ajar, the iron still on, but no Amy. Amy's typical anniversary gift to Nick includes a treasure hunt with small personal messages to help lead him to the next location and to the big present. When he finds the first clue she had left for him he begins to follow the clues and realizes that Amy had been trying to More...

This is probably one of the hardest reviews to write because starting half way--when the story "really" starts, when things get going--is where we begin to get twists that completely change the whole story. Thus, this needs to be kept vague for fear of revealing anything. I can say, however, that this story both enraptured me, making me a huge fan of this author, and at the same time I want it to burn in the deepest fires of hell. I'm being completely honest! This book needs to die, while I pet More...

I’ve been trying to review this book for a while now and it has become a real struggle. I don’t want to give any spoilers for this brilliant book so I will try my best, advanced warning; this review may have spoilers or turn out incredible vague. When I first saw this book I kept thinking this was just another YA novel but then I noticed this book kept popping up everywhere so I thought I better read what this is about and when I did; I had to read it right away.

When Amy disappears in suspiciou More...

Last night I put the book down because I was too sleepy to comprehend another word, but then I didn't fall asleep for a while. Instead, I thought about noir. About how much pleasure I derive from reading stories about miserable, unhappy people. Nor do I think of myself as a big noir fan, but this is the third book I've picked up within a week, so, if the book fits...

These are some miserable people, that's for sure. Nick and Amy were the perfect hipster couple, beautiful, living in their own Broo More...

The soundtrack to Gone Girl will vary greatly, depending on your mood, your ear, your sensibilities. I've no idea what tunes you'll hear, but I'm betting everyone's going to be dancing to this one. Flynn's novel is a glorious entertainment, yet gleefully dismissive of the niceties that often carefully manage (and contain) the disruptive energies of a plot entangled in domestic abuse, stalkers, grifting, a murder or two, bad parenting, and pervasive narcissism. It's the kind of nasty piece of wor More...

Gone Girl is a tense and fast-paced psychological thriller centred around a damaged, destructive marriage. It opens as Nick Dunne has just discovered his wife, Amy, has disappeared in strange circumstances on the couple's fifth wedding anniversary. As Nick looks back over the history of his relationship with Amy, the narrative switches between his perspective and Amy's diary entries, which paint a very different picture, particularly of recent events. It quickly becomes apparent that all is not More...

I was hesitant to snag this prepub out of our box at work because I didn't have a good Gillian Flynn experience the first time around. I read Sharp Objects a few years ago and I didn't like the main character. She was a little too dark and twisty for my liking. But I've heard nothing but AMAZING things about Gone Girl for a couple of months now so I finally snagged it and...well...wow.

This book is one of the best psychological thrillers I've ever read. I'm not terribly attracted to all of those More...

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It's been so long since I read this book, I still think about it though. So I suppose I should try and write a review.

Absolutely loved it! Madly Deeply Crazy in love with this book, I remember reading then phoning my mum telling her how mad I was at certain characters because I couldn't keep it to myself.
Anyone else do that? Like NEED to tell someone about what you've just read that second? I was a mad woman with this book.

There is s More...

I can't gaurentee this review will be spoiler free but I will flag the major spoilers so if you have any thoughts of reading the book DON'T LOOK AT THEM! Trust me this is a surprise you don't want ruined!

On the day of their 5th anniversary Nick's wife Amy goes missing. As with any crime where sometime happens to the wife suspicion quickly lands on Nick who looks anything but guilt free. The story is broken up between Nick's narrative which starts the day of the disapperance and Amy's diary which More...

"AMAZING" is the perfect word to describe this book.

This book makes my short list of favorites. The book starts off with a light and witty tone that leads you to believe you are in for a humorous version of some Lifetime drama....Shallow, but very enjoyable. Then suddenly you are in shock and caught so completely off guard that you can't do anything but turn the next page as fast as you can. The tone of the story changes and everything you read before turns into something so completely insane yo More...

This has spoilers. So read at your caution....
Honestly, I had a lot of thoughts about this novel and very clever ideas about how to write this review but they aborted on launch. I thought about comparing Gone Girl to American Psycho. What Brent Easton Ellis was saying about materialism and shallowness of the '80's in America was a dark cousin to what Flynn was trying to say about Gen X Uberhipsters. What happens when you're too self indulgent and too clever for your own good? Abort!

You know why, More...

Quite simply, this is one of the best novels of the year. It's a thriller in the best tradition of Alfred Hitchcock and layered with brilliantly written characters; it's the kind of book that's nearly impossible to put down. The surprises and twists keep the reader guessing up until the final page, and my first thought upon finishing the novel was that I wanted to read it a second time.

On their 5th wedding anniversary Amy disappears and a cloud of suspicion falls over her husband, Nick. To all appearances, this is the fairy tale marriage of two smart, good looking prosperous people...now we learn the truth behind the public perception. We are told the story from Nick’s perspective as the search for her progresses, as well as Amy’s, using the diary she has maintained covering the last seven years of their relationship. The tension builds as clues are uncovered, all pointing to More...

Huh…

I’ve been sitting here looking at the screen for a couple of minutes, trying to start this review, and I don’t know how to do this..
I have a feeling this will end up being nothing that even resembles an actual review, but I will try. I promise..

So this is a book.. (Good start, right?) And it’s about Nick and his wife Amy. Nick is a writer who loses his job, and Amy is a writer who loses her job. They end up moving to Nick’s hometown, to take care of his mother who is ill..

Honestly, I can’t e More...

Okay, here is the thing. I like dark and twisted stories. The twisted plotlines and authentically scarred characters pull me and I am hooked. Gillian Flynn wrote such a story line very well in Sharp Objects. That story is messed up but beautiful all the same. Donna Tartt and Tana French are other authors that know how to write about those dark places in the human soul. But it isn't just darkness in these stories that I love, there is also intensely developed characters and character driven plot More...

In an interview, Flynn mentions that she thinks mystery is a great way into a character study. That's what this book is: a study of the real, flawed, weird people lurking under the facades of everyone we know. Even the ones we really know. And then there's a mystery to dress it up, and it's maybe blown up a bit large to make it fun. We all have secrets; most of us aren't total sociopaths, the way at least one of the characters in this book is.

I like this kind of study, because under my charming More...