But, objectively, this is a really great book. Spoilt, rich people do not pull at my heartstrings. I am used to Ms Flynn giving me the dregs of society, the lowlifes and the majorly-troubled, giving me characters with genuine reasons to complain about life. I think this is why I found the parts where they whine about how awful their life is - moving from a huge house in New York to a slightly smaller one in Missouri* - quite tedious. But I think it all comes down to the fact that I didn't care much about the background story of the couple's financial hardship. It allows for a slow, cleverly-painted picture to build up of this marriage and its many secrets, of Amy and Nick's state of mind. Gone Girl is much slower than Flynn's first two novels, which is both a strength and a weakness. To put it in perspective, I read War and Peace in the same time it took me to read Flynn's latest work.īut it's good, isn't it? How can I not praise a book that so cleverly pulls apart the minds of a husband and wife? In terms of writing, creativity, originality. Unlike Gone Girl, which I tried to read about five times and gave up, then when I finally came back to it, I took a week to get through it. I read both of Flynn's previous novels in a day or two. Sharp Objects and Dark Places are wild, gritty, nasty books that pull you in, engage you and poison your mind. And for exploring the dark depths of psychology. But some of the same old ideas kept popping into my head while I was reading Gone Girl because I think this is the book that most showcases Flynn's talent for writing. I don't think I need to tell you that Flynn is not quite Proust. Surely I cannot begin to claim that Proust is anything other than a literary genius? I wouldn't want to try. 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 some people might not enjoy it so much? To use quite an extreme example, I really struggled to read Proust's Swann's Way and can't say I enjoyed it - but that doesn't make it a bad 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. 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. "Gillian Flynn is the real deal, a sharp, acerbic, and compelling storyteller with a knack for the macabre." She graduated at the University of Kansas, and qualified for a Master's degree from Northwestern University. In 2007 the novel was shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Writer, Crime Writers' Association Duncan Lawrie, CWA New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers, winning in the last two categories.įlynn, who lives in Chicago, grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. Themes include dysfunctional families,violence and self-harm. The dark plot revolves around a serial killer in a Missouri town, and the reporter who has returned from Chicago to cover the event. Her book has received wide praise, including from authors such as Stephen King. She has so far written three novels, Sharp Objects, for which she won the 2007 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the best thriller Dark Places and her best-selling third novel Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn is an American author and television critic for Entertainment Weekly.
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