Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

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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?

Wow. I did it. I finally got the chance to see what all the hype was about, and let me say - it certainly lived up. Gone Girl isn't just your everyday, run-of-the-mill mystery novel - there's enough twists and turns to keep readers fully on their toes at all times. Just when you think you know what's going on, everything explodes in your face, and you're left with completely different feelings than what you started out with. All in all, I'd describe it as a suspenseful and emotional roller-coaster of a tale.

Now, I'll admit, when I started reading this I already knew that Ben Affleck had been cast as the lead character, Nick Dunne, so I couldn't help but picture him as the character in my mind. He was just so perfect. It's so easy to picture Ben Affleck as the pretentious, down-in-his-luck asshole of a New York writer, who had once been a lovable small-town mama's boy. But despite his flaws, you just can't help but silently root for him. Perfect casting, right?

At any rate, throughout the majority of the novel, you really have no idea what happened. Every chapter alternates between Nick's point-of-view and his missing wife's old journal entries. You kind of start to have a feel of how these two think, but Nick has such a blasé attitude towards everything that it's difficult to fully tell why he acts the way that he does. I honestly couldn't tell if he murdered his wife or not, and I kept flipping back and forth  on my decision ("Guilty!....Wait...not guilty! I mean, maybe he did it. Or maybe not. NO - burn him at the stake!!! Oh, wait, I'm sorry - that poor, poor bastard.") the whole way through.

I don't want to get into too much detail because it's hard to do without giving away too much. All I can say is that it's best to delve into this book not knowing anything at all, because the real fun in reading this novel is not knowing where it's going to take you next, which is harder if you already have preconceived notions about what's going to happen. GRRRR!!!! Just read it already! Trust me when I say that there is a very good reason that this book remained at the top of the bestseller list for as long as it did. Recommended!

*And if it helps, the only word that popped into my head upon finishing this novel was a simple: "Fuck."