Audiobook Review – Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Narrated by Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Mystery/Psychological Thriller
Length: 19 hours and 57 minutes
Publisher: Random House Audio
Release Date: June 05, 2012
ASIN: B0088UT8IO
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars
“On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy’s diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer? “
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on audiobook from my library.
Thoughts: I waffled between 3 and 4 stars for this book. While I respect some of the clever twists and analysis of psychosis in this book, I honestly didn’t really enjoy it all that much. People are fairly familiar with this book so I won’t go into a synopsis but just provide some of my comments and feelings about the story. I did listen to this on audiobook and the audiobook was very well done if you enjoy audiobooks.
The first half of the book is slow moving and pretty boring. I listened to this on audiobook and at 20 hours it’s fairly lengthy. The first 10 hours or so are pretty basic husband-being-accused-of-murdering-wife type of murder mystery stuff. Not all that interesting.
The second half of the book does turn all the typical murder mystery tropes on their head but mostly left me just feeling depressed and yucky. All of the people in this book are huge assholes (with maybe the expectation of one of the cops and Nick’s sister). This ends up being an awful story about how twisted and awful people can be to each other. Really it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
I am not a huge murder mystery type of person. I don’t really enjoy reading about a lot of brutality or about people screwing each other over. I read this because it’s been so popular and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I read “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” for the same reason and hated that book.
So, there you go. As someone who enjoys humorous fantasy with the occasional dash of romance and also enjoys sci-fi reads…this wasn’t for me…at all. I did appreciate some of the clever twists, but they ended up being almost too clever and felt contrived. I did finish it, so there’s something to be said for that. However, the ending was just as twisted and disturbing as the second half of the book.
My Summary (3/5): Overall while I didn’t absolutely hate this book and am glad I read it (I think). This really wasn’t the type of book I enjoy. There were some interesting twists but the people were so mean and nasty to each other that it was a bit nauseating. My overall feeling with this book was frustration. Frustration at how pointless the characters’ actions were from a big picture perspective and at how mean they were to each other and at how long it took me to finish because I just wanted to be done with it and move on to something else. I won’t be reading any other Gillian Flynn books in the future. If murder mystery books involving twisted psychopaths are your thing, you will probably enjoy this. However, it wasn’t for me.
