Things are never what they seem in Gillian Flynn’s thriller, Gone Girl. The book, published in 2012, quickly rose to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list and has sold millions of copies since then. The novel’s quick rise to fame has led to a film adaptation directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network), which will be released in October 2014.
Gone Girl revolves around the disappearance of the rich and beautiful Amy Elliot Dunne on her fifth wedding anniversary and the unexpected events that follow.
At first the narration switches between Nick in the present day as he realizes that Amy is missing and Amy’s past diary entries that recount the seemingly perfect story of how they met and how their marriage slowly crumbles.…show more content… The diary version of Amy turns out to be a complete hoax as part of her devious plan punish her husband for his role in their failed marriage. Amy is not dead at the bottom of a river as suspected, but rather hiding away in a nearby lodging, where her money is stolen and she is forced to look to a crazy ex-boyfriend for help.
Flynn reveals Amy’s true self to the reader as a woman who has strived to put on a “cool girl” persona that reflects the perfect girl described in her parents’ best-selling series titled “Amazing Amy” which was named after her. She spent years trying to be that perfect girl that her marriage ended up full of deception from both sides. After five years of marriage, Amy’s false exterior slips away and while in hiding, she starts to figure out who the real Amy is.
The way the diary is written is completely calculated as Flynn reveals that control-freak Amy has been planning this for months. She purposefully wrote the diary to make herself likeable which was easer for her as she is used to acting like a likeable person on a daily basis. The ‘real’ Amy even describes her multiple checklists used to carry out her master plan.
At the same time Nick, on his own search to clear his name, looks to Amy’s past for answers and starts to see the lies Amy has told and the horrible things she’s done to people who she felt did her