Half epistolary, half true-crime-style narrative, this book amazed and compelled me. It starts out when Amy, Nick’s wife, has gone missing. Nick dutifully calls the police, then starts to fall apart as the evidence that he murdered Amy piles up. Amy’s story begins in her journal, as she tells about how she met Nick, about her life as trust-fund daughter upon which a best selling children’s story series was based. She writes about how their perfect marriage became less perfect, and about how worried she was about Nick. Until about halfway through the novel, I was on the fence about whether or not Nick really did kill Amy.
What I liked best about this novel was the level of detail. Both Nick and Amy felt like real, flawed but likeable people. Even as I became more certain that Nick had turned bad and murdered Amy, I still wanted to like him. Amy was just about perfect; pretty, rich and smart, she had just enough worry and self-doubt, and eagerness to fix her breaking marriage that my heart went out for her. These people are just like me and my husband, I thought. Now that I’ve finished the book, I can’t really say that anymore, which is a very good thing.
Since it’s a Gillian Flynn book, I figured that the truth would be dark and twisted and just messed up on more than one level. Yup. I don’t want to get into details, but the story goes in a really dark and disconcerting direction.
