Sometimes you are surprised by a book. It takes you on a journey that you never expected and when it ends leaves you wondering how you ended up at this point rather than the one you anticipated when you opened the book at the beginning. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is that kind of book. The story begins with Nick coming home to a house that is ransacked, furniture upturned and his wife missing. Unable to find his wife, Nick is soon being questioned by the police and in alternating chapters we hear his side of the story juxtaposed with chapters containing entries from a diary written by his missing wife that tell a very different story about their marriage and their life together. At each step along the way the reader is being asked to figure out what is true in the relationship and what is false about their life together. But much as I would like to say more, this is about all I can say about the plot without giving it away!

What I found fascinating bout this book was the very different perspective that Nick and his wife had about their marriage. The psychological aspects of their relationship and the way that their life circumstances and disappointments in each other began to affect their marriage are portrayed in a real way. Flynn is a good writer and she has a keen sense of what motivates her characters. She carefully reveals little nuggets and clues along the way which pulls you along in the story, but they never seem out of character or misplaced. Although the characters were well developed in this book it was still quite disturbing and at the end all you can do is hope real people would make better or different choices if given the same circumstances.

I would be really interested in hearing from others who have read this and let me know how you felt about this book. Remember to put “Spoiler Alert”in your comment if you are going to give anything away! One of my friends, Becky, read this and blogged about it as well and I will link it so that you can get another perspective!

This was the first book I read by Flynn and it makes me want to read more!

Brenda’s Rating: **** (Four Stars out of Five)

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Marian and Lauren.

Book Study Worthy?: It would be worth getting together while drinking a glass of wine and say to each other “OMG, what about the part where…”

Read in ebook format.