When marriage goes extremely south - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn | Blind Bookdate

When marriage goes extremely south - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn | Blind Bookdate

Welcome to Blind Bookdate where I picked up a book without any idea what it's about, only because I liked the cover.

When marriage goes extremely south - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn | Blind Bookdate

WARNING SPOILERS! WARNING SPOILERS!

Introduction

I picked up this book not knowing what it was about nor did I had an idea what to expect. A couple of reasons I picked this up are listed below:

• Nice book cover, check! One of the main appeals (for me) as to why I'd pick up a book.

• Five-star reviews, check! If I wanted to read a book blindly, I'd just check the stars and not the actual reviews.

• Movie adaptation, check! A book couldn't be that bad if it has one of these. Even if there were times adaptations were a disappointment.

With all these things in consideration, I went ahead and bumped this up the TBR pile.

Book

Following Nick Dunne's POV, I learned that he was a writer (how relatable) and that the economy for his chosen career wasn't doing well. So, now he was managing a bar with his twin sister, Margo a.k.a. Go. Another thing Nick revealed how his marriage wasn't going well. It was as if their spark was gone and they were just living together because they were bound by their wedding rings. Nick ranted about how Amy (his wife) was expecting him to know trivias about Amy or their history. One of their traditional activities during their anniversary was a treasure hunt (in courtesy of Amy). Unfortunately, Nick kept missing the hints leading to a supposed romantic place of their past. Even if he did find the right location for the next clue, he didn't remember what was so special about it.

I've experienced treasure hunting with friends and family before, and a couple of those times I was also the game master. I could understand what Amy must have felt if the players didn't get the clue, especially if it was something special between them. As the clues were based off something they both knew. (An inside joke for example lol, at least it's something I've done with my own treasure hunt.)

For a moment, I thought it was going to be just an angsty romance story about a couple struggling to keep their marriage together. Boy was I wrong. Later in the story, Nick and I were worried about Amy because she had gone missing. And the clues left behind was building up to a kidnapping case. The anticipation was pretty good, I was hooked! The only thing I struggled with was probably the amount of profanity in every chapter.

The police investigated everyone that could have a motive. From her high school classmate to the stalker, Desi. However, all of them were a dead end because the clues weren't pointing at them. The clues pointed to Nick as the one who'dunne-it. Pun intended.

While Nick cooperated with the police to help find Amy (he even had to play the latest treasure hunt in hopes that it would give the police something to work with), the effort didn't remove him as a suspect though. Because The moment they started asking for Amy's panty size, my gut instinct was telling me there was another woman somewhere in Nick's closet. And I was right.

At the later half of the book, Amy herself finally revealed her whereabouts and the thick plot just thickened some more. In Nick's POV, it was as if Amy was the one wrong in the relationship, but in Amy's POV, it was Nick who was flawed as a husband. Whether it was true or they were unreliable narrators, it definitely misled me.

Amy's high school classmate apparently wasn't a stalker as she was made up to be. Nick unraveled that Amy was jealous of said classmate (I forgot her name, I think Hillary) and had been planning for months to ruin her. Now they had reason to believe that Amy knew about Nick's affair and Amy going missing was all part of the plan to punish Nick for it. Hillary was smart to stay away from Amy after that frame-up. If Amy was willing to hurt herself and act like a victim, she was another level of danger.

Thoughts

Nick was the average husband and Amy... Amy wasn't just Amazing Amy as her parents' book referred her as. Amy was Crazy Amy. Nick was wrong for cheating her, but Amy was loose in the head with the stunts she pulled to punish Nick. Kudos to her patience and meticulous planning though.

The book gave me the idea that it was going to be the struggle between husband and wife, but I didn't see the rollercoaster behind that.

There were lies left and right. Nick's secret and Amy's dark side. Neither were the perfect partner, but the way things went down, I felt the need to choose who I wanted to root for. Did I want Nick to get away with cheating and put Amy to jail? Or did I want Amy to succeed to punish Nick for cheating and get away with the mind games she pulled?