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Faux Clarity and Meta Perspectives: ‘Gone Girl’ is a Masterclass in Narrative Control

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Between two book tags, a movie review, and a year-end wrap-up post, it feels like it’s been a little while since we reviewed any books here on the blog. Let’s change that!

I mentioned in my review of The Grownup last October, that I knew Gone Girl by reputation, but had yet to read the book or watch the movie. I’m not sure if the book was on my radar at the time of its release (2012), but when the movie finally came out (2014), it seemed to be all anyone was talking about.

And now in 2026(!) I still feel like it gets referenced quite a bit among my friends and the book people I follow online. I think my friends were mostly just surprised I never went for it as I A) read a lot, and B) am generally keeping an eye out for trends.

I would have just graduated college back in June of 2012 when this book came out, and wouldn’t start this blog for another 3-4 months, and even then I’d only post on it like once a month. 2014 when the movie arrived was little better with just a smattering of posts in January, April, June, and July of that year. Most (if not all) of my posts from that time seem to revolve around small publications and Independent authors (with the exception of Ryan Holiday’s Trust Me, I’m Lying which was a huge book for me).

My goodreads account shows only 4 books read in 2012, and another 4 in 2014.

Looking back at this actually kind of fascinating. As I mention in my Jackalope Wives review, I was working seemingly quite hard to “get into books” as a profession, and yet my posting about books seems pretty scarce. That review mentions that I was writing for Amazing Stories and working on freelance editing gigs during 2014 as well.

It seems I may have been so focused on the small literary world I could see and interact with right in front of me, that I didn’t really notice or have time for the massive phenomenon that was Gone Girl. I missed the forest for the trees so to speak . . . which probably explains a lot about why I never “made it” in publishing (hahah).

Another reason I often hear for why people are surprised I hadn’t read this one yet is that the story is — to my mind — a bit “meta” in a way which someone with my English-y background might enjoy.

And my friends were right! I absolutely did enjoy the kind of meta-commentary I was picking up. I really noticed it with Amy’s diary posts, Nick’s positioning as an out-of-work journalist, Amy’s positioning as the daughter of two publishing giants, and the literal subject of a children’s series. Amy’s explanation of being a “Cool Girl” and the sort of hipster way they talk about other couples. Amy in particular has a sort of faux clarity; a misunderstanding that if she is able to point out a cliche, she is therefore above it (which we find out to be wholly untrue).

And later as things really begin to heat up, and lawyers and the press get involved, the whole story really becomes about controlling the narrative, which is just great considering all the twists and turns this story puts the reader through. Even if we are able to sus out (correctly) where something is going ahead of time, it’s usually so audacious that we dismiss it right away. At no point is the reader ever in control of Gone Girl‘s narrative. Flynn is in control the WHOLE TIME!!

I don’t think I’ve ever been so divided about two characters in a book. Neither Nick, nor Amy, are good people. Yet at different points of the story, you find yourself rooting for each of them to ‘win’ even though they don’t have any moral ground to stand on. Aside from the twists (yes multiple), I think this character work is what really shows Flynn’s skill as an author. That we are made to care for each of these two characters no matter what new (and often awful) piece of information is revealed is simply incredible.

I think my only critique is that sometimes Nick seems a little too oblivious early on to be able to pull off some of the stunts he is able to later in the book. I think his backstory as a journalist/reporter and his understanding of how the press works definitely give him the skillset to accomplish things the way he does, but it does kind of leave the reader wondering where the heck were these skills earlier the story?

Give ‘Gone Girl‘ a Read?

Absolutely. I think this one is a rare case in which all the hype which has surrounded it for so long is legitimately earned. It’s a great story with expertly written characters which you never really come to like, but ultimately root for all the same. Equally compelling is the way in which the reader never quite ‘figures’ this one out. Even if you do guess important twists, you dismiss them so quickly that when they reappear you’re still shocked that the author ‘actually did that’.

More Palahniuk Than Poltergeist: A Look at Gillian Flynn’s ‘The Grownup’

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It’s October again, which means I’m officially back in my Haunted House Era until we hit November. Looking back at last October (2024), it seems we were a bit light with only my review of What Moves The Dead scratching this particular itch. Marcus Kliewer’s We Used To Live Here seems like what I should have been reading, but apparently I didn’t get around to it until November. Weird. In any case, it’s probably the last haunted house story I’ve read, and honestly my current favorite.

The plan for THIS October is to read Gillian Flynn’s The Grownup (check), and two more haunted house stories before finishing out the month with a book tag!

Will I actually manage to get all of that reading done? Will I get the reviews written? And will I have a new favorite by the end of this month? Only time will tell.

Let’s get to it!

To my knowledge, this is the first piece of fiction from Gillian Flynn that I’ve actually read. I really enjoyed HBO’s Sharp Objects (though I only got around to watching it within the last year or two), and I knew Gone Girl by reputation though I had never seen the movie or read the book (I am now about 20% through the book).

But somewhere in the back of my mind, I had remembered that Flynn had written a “fantasy story”, which was in one of the George R.R. Martin anthologies (Rogues). I was surprised and honestly kind of curious, but had yet to pursue it. This info was far from my mind when I set out to build my list for this October, but as I was scrolling through my library’s catalog, and came across The Grownup I was again surprised that Flynn had worked on something with a supernatural bent. Finally it clicked that THIS was the fantasy story from Rogues, originally titled What Do You Do?

It’s hard to discuss this short story fully without spoiling most of the twists — I’m learning that Gillian Flynn loves a good twist! — but a few things stand out about it right from the start.

The first thing is the opening. It starts: “I didn’t stop giving hand jobs because I wasn’t good at it.”

Excuse me what?

I’ll refrain from making an ex-squeeze me joke (ok I guess I still made it) but talk about an attention grabbing first line. And about setting the tone hahah. I felt this opening notable for more than just raunchy nature of its content however. First, it’s (ahem) dripping with characterization and hopelessly compelling from that lens. Who is the type of person that introduces themselves this way?

Second, it sets The Grownups apart from other haunted house stories, in that it doesn’t begin with describing THE HOUSE. Perhaps the prime example of what I’m talking about is the quintessential Sherley Jackson classic The Haunting of Hillhouse which manages to give the reader a sense of unease and dread about Hillhouse within the first paragraph.

The Grownups doesn’t bother, it positions its narrator as its most interesting character, gives us her story right away, and then finally talks about the house somewhere around the halfway-point (pg 28 of only 62). In this way, it almost reads more like a Chuck Palahniuk novel than a true horror story (now I want to re-read Haunted). It’s hard to think of this choice as anything but deliberate, especially since Flynn’s narrator — something of a bookworm despite her profession — mentions Haunting of Hillhouse as a favorite read of one of her Johns.

In any case, when the house finally does get introduced, it is sufficiently creepy from the outside, and even more horrific once we meet the people living there. I sort of have to stop here as we begin getting into spoiler territory but just know that once we finally get to Carterhook Manor, the twists start coming and Flynn does a wonderful job destabilizing the story, giving us the illusion of knowing what’s going on and then finding out, time after time, we actually had no idea.

I will admit, my only complaint about the book, is that Flynn does not spend much time attempting to ‘scare’ the reader. It’s just not that type of story. So while I did enjoy this one a lot, I’m not really sure it quite hit the threshold of the ‘spooky’ vibe I was aiming for with my selection this month.

So, Give “The Grownup” a Read?

I liked this one. Flynn knows her craft well, and is able to hook the reader with something unexpected from literally the first sentence of this story. And because I’m a nerd, I enjoyed how this book situates itself within the genre, or I guess how it kind of removes itself from the genre while still managing to incorporate some of its sign posts.

All of that meta commentary happening with mentions of The Haunting of Hillhouse, and Dracula; Rebecca and The Woman In White (I still need to read those last two classics), make it extra fascinating that the story was originally published in what is ostensibly a fantasy anthology (GRRM’s Rogues).

Also, it’s a short one, so there’s little downside here that I can see except that it’s generally not really a spooky book in the way we want in the lead up to Halloween.

That’s all I have for this week! Has anyone read this one before? What parts were your favorite? Would you try ‘cleanse’ Carterhook Manor. By what point would you have nope’d out of there?

That’s all I have for this week! See you next time!