Quick note: This "review" (and hopefully ensuing discussion) is about the ending of Gone Girl, so it will be a SPOILER!
I'm coming late to the review and discussion of Gone Girl, so I'm thinking I can skip the whole book review part and straight out ask about the end. Let me start by saying I liked the book, it definitely has the twists and turns that make me love a book. I switched sides between Nick and Amy, not knowing who to believe through the first half (although I can honestly and proudly report that I believed Nick most of the time)! I called the Desi twist the second he mentioned his place for Amy's refuge (yes, another proud reader moment). It was all good the whole way through...
...but what's up with the ending?! Cheering for Nick those last twenty pages, having his secret meetings with Boney and Go, I'm nuts waiting for them to bring about a clue I had missed or for Amy to slip up. I just know he will be not only vindicated of Amy, but also liberated from Amy. And there is a clue I overlooked, but it's not one that works in Nick's favor. Amy had saved their specimen from the fertilization clinic and caught Nick with the age old girl tries to keep boy tactic: I'm pregnant. Yes, it is different because they are married, but it is also the same because she is using it to keep Nick by her side. She knows a baby, especially a son, is enough reason for him to drop everything and stick around. And so it ends.
WHAT? Was there no way for Nick to plot a little in the next nine months and get his baby and trip Amy up somehow? The end made me so mad! I was pulling for Nick and as the pages became fewer I should've realized it wasn't going to be. I stayed up until 2AM only to have my hopes crushed. And all I can think now is, "Poor Nick" and "What kind of life will that poor child have?" It's the left over possibilities that haunt me most.
What did you think of the end? Is there any good side to see in it?
I LOVE how screwed up the ending to Gone Girl was! I'm proud of Gillian Flynn for going soooo not-Hollywood and going very far off the deep end with messed-up Amy. It's not a "good" ending, it's a twisted ending, but I LOVE it!
ReplyDeleteI think readers are very polarized with the ending - they either love it or hate it!
A friend who is a librarian said her patrons take the book exactly that way - either love it or hate it and it's all based on the ending. The one thing I can give the credit for in the ending is how she described that Nick and Amy needed each other in that twisted way. So it gave some sort of closure to it.
DeleteI'm not sure I loved or hated the ending. It didn't piss me off because I could see the author had made a brave choice in not tying it up too neatly. I also appreciated that it left room for a sequel---in which I hope Amy will get it, big time.
DeleteIf there is a sequel where Amy gets taken out, I will write a whole post apologizing! Lol, that would be great. The book was captivating, I would definitely read a sequel.
DeleteI have such mixed feelings about the end of that book ;) Like Rebecca I'm glad that Flynn didn't go for the easy ending. BUT omg it's so awful how it ended at the same time, lol. Bah, those two deserve one another I suppose!
ReplyDeleteThey do deserve each other in a way...but I worry about the poor baby!
DeleteI have not read the book but I am going to jump in because “the end made me so mad” really pisses me off in books and movies. ‘Pay it Forward’ and ‘City of Angels’ two movies that set me up all nice and comfy on the deep shag, and then pulled that sucker right out from under me, left me feeling betrayed and manipulated. I hate, when I hate the ending of a book or a movie.
ReplyDeleteKing wrote a short story called ‘The Mist’. I read it years ago, reread it a couple of times, I just loved it. It was made into a movie and I was so excited. They changed the ending and when it happened I was so mad I could have strangled the rug-yanker. I still bristle over that one.
So I get where you’re coming from; staying up ‘til 2am only exasperates the angst.
Yes! Rug-yanker is it exactly!! The book was good all...the...way...then on your face.
DeleteBut I still like the book up until that point. And it is clever the one little clue you forget about because it's so cleverly mentioned and let go and comes back to bite you in the end.
I'm not a huge reader, but do enjoy a book that captures my attention, leaves me thinking about it all day, and prevents me from getting anything else down because I can't put it done. This is that book. Totally captivating, well written, and filled with cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. Well worth the read!
ReplyDeleteAya,
Best Alaska Fishing
And soon to be a movie! The author is rewriting the ending for the movie I hear.
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