Author, Book adaptation, Books, Inspiration, Review, Thoughts

Review of Gone Girl

gillian-flynn

Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn

I read this quite a bit after the initial hype, feeling that as is so often the case that a very well praised book usually doesn’t live up to expectations. However in this case, the book did. I found the character of Amy to be compelling, if obviously mentally unstable given the lengths that she goes to in order to rid herself of a no longer satisfactory relationship. A small part of me felt sympathy for her, given her relationship with her parents which is portrayed as being manipulative, and they seem to be disappointed with the fact that they didn’t receive the ‘perfect’ Amy of the story books.

Nick is a fairly ordinary if emotionally repressed character, and I was grabbed from early on in the narrative, wondering who had hurt Amy, and how he was going to get her back. I thought at first that it was a standard, if very well written thriller viewed from the perspective of the spouse left behind. Like many people, I hope and imagine, I was surprised when Amy’s point of view revealed the truth behind what was happening.

I was inspired by the sheer talent that Flynn displayed throughout her writing in this novel to seek out the other books that were available to me through the library, but I have to say that the previous novels didn’t quite seize me in the same way. I think that she had steadily been improving her writing capabilities, and whatever she produces after Gone Girl will be something that I will seek out, to see if she continues this high level of characterisation and misdirection within the plot.

 

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hgolightly1982

I'm a thirty something woman who lives in the north of England. I have been a writer for as long as I can remember, creating stories both written and verbal since childhood. While studying at Edge Hill College, I got several poems published by a small publisher in the USA, and in Europe. I have been part of several writing groups, and done quite a few courses in a attempt to hone my writing skills further. I love reading different genres of fiction, knowing that the best way to develop my own writing, and my vocabulary is by exposing myself to the different ways that other people choose to describe things. The most recent writing course that I've been part of, run by a published author, included a exercise in which we were challenged to read things that we would never usually even look at. It inspired me to take up a challenge. Namely to attempt to read at least one book by every author which is stocked in my local library. I soon realised that I was being far too ambitious, especially given the fact that every library rotates their stock too often for me to keep track. I've decided to instead attempt to read a book every day, starting with a author whose surname begins with A, and ending with a author whose surname begins with Z. It doesn't matter what the topic of the book is, or if it's fiction or non fiction, everything is useful for me at the minute.

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