First of all, I think Gillian Flynn must be all kinds of messed up to think of this amazing story of Nick and Amy's relationship!! I would seriously sleep with one eye open if I was her husband.
I was OB. SESSED. with this book during the 2 days it took me to read it. I love books that hook me and keep me off guard and this book did both. I was on such an emotional roller coaster from section 1-3 that after a while I didn't know what was what! Insane.
Here are some good questions to get the discussion rolling...
**How did you feel about Nick during the first section of the book? Did you doubt his innocence?
**Did you have any clue about what would be revealed when you turned the page into the second part of the book?
**Did you feel like Nick was absolved from cheating when more of Amy's personality was revealed or is cheating always wrong?
**Amy is psycho! But isn't Nick, too???
**How did you feel when the pregnancy was revealed at the end? Did you figure out this last card she played before it was revealed?
**Did you wish the book ended differently or was it fitting for the type of relationship Nick and Amy had?
I'm looking for suggestions for our next book! Let's get through Christmas and plan to discuss a new book around the end of January.
Check back here on Sunday for an Elf on the Shelf Party! We can share all our silly, funny, creative Elf ideas so we're all set for all the Elf craziness in December!
Okay, let's get the ball rolling here...
ReplyDeleteI loved this book, like I mentioned before and actually would stare at it in the passenger seat while I was driving someplace and long to pull over to read it!
During the first section of the book I was so pissed at Nick. I seriously thought he was a total a$$hol* and felt so bad for Amy. In fact, I have a friend who didn't like the direction of the book at this point and stopped reading it. BIG mistake!
Once part two began I seriously started to think I'd gone crazy! Nothing was as it seemed and I realized the depth of Amy's crazy...which translated into Gillian Flynn's crazy for thinking of this twist! I never saw it coming. Not at all.
I still think that this does not absolve Nick from cheating. Just end this thing. But, I guess that is revealed later that these two feed off each other and fuel both their crazy tendencies.
I felt like an idiot for not picking up on the pregnancy because once I read it I remembered the clinic calling and saying they needed to make a decision about the eggs. Can't believe she snuck another one in on me!
It's so sick that this is how the book ended and many of my friends hated this ending, but it just had to end with one more twisted thing. It kind of played out that BOTH Nick and Amy are screwed in the head. They both stuck it to each other in the end, which is fitting because it's the only way this relationship could survive.
It might be interesting to see how this child's life plays out in the future. Poor kid.
Okay, I'm curious what you think of the ending b/c a friend and I completely disagree on what the ending meant. Did Amy kill Nick? Or is she just keeping him around longer to torture him? I need definitive endings to books and this one bugged me. I really really liked it and have downloaded her two other books but I just need to know what the ending meant! Argh!
ReplyDeleteI read it as she is keeping him around so that she can toy with him. That's her thing. She needs a mouse. He'll stay because of the kid.
DeleteThat is exactly the way I interpreted it. So sick! But classic Amy!
DeleteWell, I didn't get that she killed Nick. But she's crazy, right. It definitely alluded to the fact that more craziness was probably in their future. How is that woman going to raise a child???
ReplyDeleteI loved the first section of this book. I literally could not put it down and could not figure out what was going on. Nick's version of events and Amy's diary just didn't mesh. At one point I thought these people all have multiple personalities! Ha, that actually may have been less crazy than what was actually going on.
I guess I tended to side with Nick throughout the book. I felt like he was manipulated by a psychopath and got into a situation that he couldn't get out of. Yes, he cheated but I sort of think being married to a psychopath lets you get away with it. I know, he could have just left. Which is probably what he should have done. But, now knowing that she's completely nuts, who knows what she would have done to him if he'd tried that!
You're right, he might have been killed in his sleep!
DeleteI figured from the beginning that she was setting him in some way and had left him to pay for a crime he didn't commit. I knew in the next section it would be revealed that she was still alive. I did not, however, realize how bat sh... insane she was until I started reading that part.
ReplyDeleteI get why Nick had the affair, but it wasn't justified. Two wrongs don't make a right. Plus he didn't do it because she was all nutso. He did it to make himself feel better about getting older and not having the life he wanted.
I still don't get Amy didn't just swim away from the house she where she was trapped. She was on a lake for Pete's sake. Not really all that hard to escape. You don't have to stab a man to death.
I thought it ended too abruptly and all of the sudden was just, okay. We're done.
I didn't like this book at all. I'm into justice, and I felt like Amy did not get what she deserved for everything she did.
For some reason, I really wanted to the dad to play a bigger part. Like he had seen her do what she did or saw her do something and from his mutterings the police pieced together and in the end he saved his kid, even if it wasn't intentional.
I agree with the infidelity because while he was carrying on his affair he had no idea how crazy she was - he just thought he was married to a bitch who changed after they got married.
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ReplyDeleteJust finished this book tonight. CRAZY! I had my Sherlock Holmes pipe in since the beginning of the book, just trying to figure out what was going on. I didn't believe Nick "did" it, probably because it was so early in the book and I was unwilling to let myself get duped right away :) But when the 2nd part started, I had to read and re read the first 2 pages. Amy dead, but not dead ~ HUH! The girl is way crazy! Perhaps it's weird, but I was rooting for Nick and his crazy, crabby ass. Partially because of all the wacked out, crazy things Amy had done ~ even as a young girl. The one thing I did keep waiting for was for something to happen with the guy in the bar where Amy met Desi when she called him to help her after she was robbed. The guy kept staring at her and Amy was getting weirded out. I'm sure it was just because Flynn was trying to portray her as paranoid, but I was hoping for more out of that little encounter. And yes, Nick is crazy on his own level, but the thought of the two of them raising a child ~ watch out!
ReplyDeleteI thought the scene in the bar (of a casino I believe) would pan-out in Boney trying to catch her too, especially since casinos are full of cameras. I also thought Desi comment about saving all the letters Amy sent him over the years (I imagine she did send him letters to keep him hanging on) would be found by his mother.
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