5 Reasons ‘Gone Girl’ is the Perfect Holiday Read
The holidays are a magical, delicious time of year. You spend time with your loved ones, you get to shower them with beautifully wrapped gifts, and you indulge in giant holiday meals and baked goods. It’s hard not to be on cloud nine for the entire month of December.
And Gone Girl is a gripping psychological thriller about a marriage that’s falling apart when wife, Amy goes missing on her and Nick’s five year wedding anniversary. Nick is a suspect, because the husband is always a suspect, and as he searches for his wife’s whereabouts, you are constantly trying to decide if he actually did kill her.
On the surface, this book might seem like a strange choice for a new holiday tradition, but here are five reasons you’ll want to crack this book open every December. (And you could win a copy of Gillian Flynn’s best sellers – Gone Girl, Sharp Objects, and Dark Places if you enter our giveaway below!)
1. The brilliant narration.
Nick’s kind of d-bag. But he knows it! He’s constantly referring to his face as “one you’d want to punch” and his personality traits making him seem like a jerk to anyone that meets him. Amy saw past all of that though, and fell madly in love with him. She’s a high maintenance, rigid woman that wants to love Nick as he is and doesn’t want to be a demanding wife, but is often disappointed that he she can’t change him.
The writing is magnificent, and each chapter alternates between Nick and Amy’s POV. Nick’s story begins the day she goes missing. Amy’s story begins when she meets Nick and leads up to the day she goes missing. It’s consuming, and so incredibly addicting, to see these two fall in love and then witness how they start to fall apart.
I have to be honest, between reading another few chapters of Gone Girl and turning on Love Actually, I actually chose Gone Girl!
2. Same book, new clues.
Nick is also a question mark. Did he kill his wife? Why does he keep behaving inappropriately in the days after she goes missing? Did he really just smile at the press conference? For a man whose wife might’ve been murdered, he seems more bitter than concerned. As the story unfolds, more suspects pop up. And because of the alternating narration between Amy and Nick, I focused so much on the clues Nick was providing the first time I read it, that when I read it for a second time, I was blown away by all of the little things I missed from Amy’s POV.
You’ll catch more clues every time you read this book. So why not plan on digging into this story once a year and see what else you find?
3. Escape the holiday theme.
You’ve been listening to nothing but holiday music for weeks, drafting lists for everyone you need to buy presents for, signing holiday cards, and you just need a break. There’s no better way to bust out of the holiday cheer mode than with a book about the search for a potential murder victim. I know that sounds a little grim, but it’s true! Take off the Santa cap and put on your detective hat for a few hours.
4. Escape the holiday stress.
The holidays are as stressful as they are magical. Planning holiday budgets, managing your time with visiting relatives, trying not to eat too many gingerbread men at once, it’s all a bit of a struggle. So rather than eating your feelings when things get cray, dive into Gone Girl and get lost in Amy’s building stress as her marriage falls apart. Hearing about other people’s stress when you are stressed is really the best present you can receive.
5. Gain some perspective.
Maybe you’re alone this holiday season. Maybe you have a giant dysfunctional family and they’re all crashing in your two bedroom apartment this year. Whatever your situation, it can’t be as bad what Nick and Amy are going through. Their extended family is also a complete mess. Once again, escape your own drama by getting wrapped up in theirs.
Even if your holidays are perfect, gathered around the tree/Christmas card perfect, this is fun way to take a step back and appreciate what you have. It’s also a way to remain entertained and on the edge of your seat until the very last page.
Get your copy here. And HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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