Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Gone Girl

Okay so the cool girl monologue slaps, but the rest of the book is just vaguely uncomfy. Nick is such a misogynist and both diary Amy is annoying and "not-like-other-girls", something real Amy is also feeling, just more extreme. It's just weird to read a book like this in a post me-too era. Like we don't need another book about a psycho bitch tearing a perfect man down with her lies! But it was fun to read and it's not a bad book. So.

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midikitty's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Everybody was absolutely insufferable

Spoiler

but Amy managed to be a level above the rest in both her pretentiousness and delusion! There’s also her sociopathy, narcissistic personality, and manipulation, which even if I hadn’t seen the movie beforehand, the faked journal entries were obviously off from the beginning. Nick presents himself as an average midwestern (yet unreliable) guy who makes dick jokes and drinks pints of PBR…not even close to the sort of person who would give a crap about monogrammed embossed stationery.
He may have checked out of their marriage on top of overall selfishness, cheating, etc. but NONE of that warranted the response Amy had. I did really appreciate that it was a prolonged pattern of behavior of hers too, that made it much more realistic.

Still an entertaining story, definitely infuriating at times. I’ll be checking out Sharp Objects next, i’ve liked this author’s books so far.

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hannahmg's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

0/1 overall
1/2 writing/structure/character creation
1/2 enjoyment

I would not recommend this book.

Overall I did not enjoy this book, the first 250 page were not needed and were poorly written, the last 50 pages were as bad as the first part of the book. I only enjoyed a small snippet of the book. The length of this triller is way to long and unnecessary. I felt like I was reading a first draft of a idea.

The writing was partly smart with good ideas but poorly done, the journal extracts giving us a unreliable pov which was smart, reminded me of Dracula, but this was done in a manner which made it worthless, more dialogue than actually description, this was so unrealistic it was unnecessary to make it seem like a dairy. Nicks pov was closer to a dairy than Amy's own dairy entries. The repetition was unbearable, -yes Nick we get it you have a mistress and she is young, very young, and pretty.
The character creation was immense and well though through, Amy and Nick are both so realistic but fucked up at the same time. This is one of the major reasons it is a two and not a one star review.

I thought there was a lot of unnecessary added details, the level of Misogyny and sexism was not needed and weakly touched on at the end. Specifically the character of Nick's father who has Dementia and becomes extremely misogynistic, with the use of the slur "bitch" in both his speech and Nicks thoughts. Why add this, I just think the book would of been fine without it and it didn't feel like a representation of any sorts but more a tick for the check list and even excusing the behaviour.

I was very disappointed in the trigger warning list i found (Storygraph). Yes it is a thriller, we should expect triggering things but at the end of the day the book should have a page of trigger warnings.

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agirlthatreadsbooksforfun's review against another edition

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4.25

“We weren’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves – surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way.”

I love mind games, and psychological thrillers seem to have them. I didn't like the first half as much as I thought I would, but when the second half hit, it hit hard. Even though I guessed the big twist, it's what that twist did for the story that made it so captivating. I didn't like the writing style at certain points of this book, it felt a bit too graphic with the cursing and gore (for my taste, that is). It made me uncomfortable, which I guess, is the point. However, overall, this book is chaotically unhinged, disturbingly dark and deceptively brilliant.

Content Warnings

izachime's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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