Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Before I begin, I want to provide a quick disclaimer that this review will contain spoilers. If you do not want to be spoiled, click away and read the book first before coming back!
Where do I even start with this review? This book was the most, if not, the best thriller I have read in 2025 and of all time! I finally understand why it is considered one of the best—it’s suspenseful, gripping, and includes many high stakes that had me flipping the pages wanting to know what came next. This was an absolute masterpiece by Flynn, a piece of literature that should be studied in breadth and depth.
The strongest element of Gone Girl is the two main characters in a complicated marriage—Nick and Amy Dunne. The entire story is told through their point of view, but they often contrast and contradict each other. Their differing personalities are the driving force of this: Nick, whose cynicism and disillusionment make him view the world through a skeptical lens and grapple with feelings of inadequacy and guilt. Amy on the other hand is boisterous, idealistic, and manipulative with a calculating side driven by a desire for control and revenge, all the while struggling to grapple with her identity and the expectations placed upon her in her marriage. Nick's cynicism leads him to expect the worst, often retreating into himself to confront his feelings, while Amy meticulously and manipulatively crafts her reality to suit her desires and goals to compensate for a lack of authenticity. Their responses to conflict underscore the complexities of their marriage, which is what made the plot addictive and unputdownable.
Nick and Amy’s personalities shine through their dual narratives, making them both unreliable narrators with specific agendas. Neither is right nor wrong, and both are equally flawed and problematic. They are writers too, which enables us to analyse them and the words they use in their storytelling. Both Nick and Amy decide to write a book based on the events that have happened, and I wholeheartedly believe that what they have written is the book we have in our hands. Despite Amy forcing Nick to delete his in fear of having her reputation ruined and Nick doing so out of obligation, I truly think Nick might have saved it somewhere so he could produce it and showcase it to the world when the time was right. If we consider each point of view as two individual retellings of the same events, then they are both Nick’s and Amy’s stories interwoven into one. This sounds a little crazy and I’m going on a tangent now, but these were the thoughts I had after finishing the book. Flynn is an absolute genius for coming up with and utilising the narrative this way!
The book’s pacing is also determined by the emotional state of the characters. It’s very up and down — it initially starts off fast-paced given Amy’s unknown whereabouts/death, Nick’s anxiety over it, and the big plot twist that Amy was alive the entire time. The pace then slows down a bit to get us familiar with Amy’s whereabouts and how Nick transforms himself for the public and his marriage. When Nick and Amy reunite, the speed picks up again, coupled with greater tension, suspense, and dooming foreshadowing as they get into a big, awful argument, with Nick wanting to kill her for staging the murder and framing him for it, and Amy taking back her control of the relationship through manipulation and bouts of gaslighting. Sh*t officially hits the fan when she reveals she’s pregnant again and the offspring is theirs. The entire book is an emotional rollercoaster, for both the characters and us as readers.
Additionally, Gone Girl also touches on and challenges society’s expectations and gender stereotypes. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you would already be aware of the “cool girl” monologue that Amy declares. I won’t go much into it here (I am planning on writing another article specifically on this!), but the concept runs deep and affects both men and women alike.
Overall and without a doubt, Gone Girl was the best thriller I have ever read, and I aspire to write one with as much anticipation, suspense, and intrigue as it did! This was the best start to my spooky autumn season, and I highly recommend reading it if you haven’t already!
