Four reasons you need to read Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl before it hits theaters
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“Don’t miss out on the luxury of using your imagination.”
EMILY DREIBELBIS: I love having the power to imagine an entire story just from words on a page. When you see a movie before reading the book, you lose the luxury of using your imagination; you can no longer create the characters because someone else has done it for you. Instead of understanding a character based on the author’s description you immediately picture some famous actor. To this day, when I think of Harry Potter I immediately picture Daniel Radcliffe, and the face of the character I had created as a child is blurry.
As an adult I feel the same about the relationship between books and movies, and I’m sure Gone Girl will be no exception. I read the book before I knew it was going to become a movie and could not put it down until I got to the end two days later. The movie will be over in two hours and, like all movies, will inevitably leave out crucial parts of the story. Gone Girl is filled with so many twists and turns that it would be a shame to let it end so quickly. Although Ben Affleck is undeniably gorgeous, he is definitely not the Nick Dunne I imagined.
Get to know these characters better.
JEN SMITH: Characters are one of the best reasons to read books. A good writer develops her characters over the course of the novel, capturing the reader’s attention and taking them into the characters’ mind to see their motivations. Movie viewers tend to focus on the moment and consume what they see, rather than think about the characters and their nuances. Gillian Flynn exposes key details about the characters at critical points in the novel, and the movie will not do these details justice. Do yourself a favor, and get the full experience of getting to know the Dunnes.
It’s a crazy ride with sharp turns and quick drops.
KATE FEHLHABER: Within a few hours of beginning this book, I had consumed over a third of its pages. I could never find a good time to put it down because the story went through wild oscillations of elated joy and disheartening melancholy. In fact, my GoodReads status update was “Happy Sad Happy Sad Happy Sad Happy Sad.” This crazy ride is filled with sharp turns that make your head whirl and quick drops that make your stomach float (just wait ’til the end!).
Some chapters are told by the husband, Nick (Affleck’s character), and others are told by his missing wife, Amy (played by Rosamund Pike), but their voices are also present in each other’s chapters. How honest is each person in the way they explain the series of events that led up to this moment? The characters are so well crafted that you often forget to question their honesty. You may even grow to like them… but this only lasts a short before Flynn pulls the rug out from under you, and you soon start to hate that character again. It’s truly a vicious cycle!
Overall, this story is fun, smart, and suspenseful. I’m curious to see how the movie adaptation deals with all these subtleties in the narrative.
You’ll walk away wondering what you learned.
CATHERINE ABALOS: I couldn’t put this book down. Without giving away any details, the twists were great and the plot compelling. Plus days later I was still considering what I learned from the experience. The entire time I was thinking about what a great movie this would make, and in that sense it was an engaging read. A year later, my presumption is coming true, and I can’t wait to see how the movie interprets Flynn’s work. I found the characters unexpectedly nuanced, and I liked that I was rooting for different ones every few chapters. The use of an unreliable narrator is always a fun challenge for a book that isn’t heavy literary-wise.
Have you read Gone Girl? We want to hear your reactions!
Catherine Abalos is founder and editor of The Single Diaries. With special thanks to Emily Dreibelbis, Kate Fehlhaber, and Jen Smith.
