Title:	Gone Girl
	Author:	Gillian Flynn
	Published:	2012 Hardcover; 2014 Paperback,
	No. of Pages:	432
	Cover Price:	$25 Hardcover; $15 Paperback; $7.99 Kindle

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Gillian Flynn's highly celebrated and bestselling psychological thriller, Gone Girl is the story of Amy Elliot and Nick Dunne, who have a storybook romance and blissful wedding. Both journalists working in New York, they subsequently lose their jobs and move to a small town in Missouri (Nick's home town), to pick up where they left off and reestablish their idyllic life together. Things don't go as planned, and their marriage is on the rocks. On their fifth anniversary, Nick comes home and finds Amy gone, with a scene that suggests that she has been kidnapped and possibly murdered. Everything goes downhill and Nick becomes the main suspect in Amy's disappearance and murder.

The characters in this novel are not likeable – not even one. They include a psychopathic, narcissistic character who will stop at nothing, even murder, to fulfill her selfish desires, and practices revenge on those she blatantly uses in her malevolent schemes; a character who is insecure and relies on others to validate him, and because he needs that validation, feels it is his right to cheat on his wife with the excuse that he isn't happy and is entitled to his own happiness; an immature mistress who cares only about herself, and even though it may mean that her lover is sent to the gas chamber, thinks only about how she "needs to see him," and "can't possibly go without hearing from him at least once a day, or she'll go crazy." There are psychologist parents who proudly wrote children's books about their amazing daughter – those books became standard for generations of children, made millions of dollars, and made it possible for the parents to establish a trust fund for their daughter. Unfortunately, Amy's parents "borrowed" the money in her trust fund and she gave the rest to Nick to open a bar, so she is left penniless.

Almost everyone knows a real-life someone who is similar to or exactly like one or more of the characters in this book. And, unfortunately in real-life, often those people come out on top.

The book is definitely fascinating and hard to put down. However, it's not because the reader wants a favorite character to come out on top; rather it's because the reader most likely wants the worst character punished. Gone Girl brings to light the new generation of entitlement – the "it's all about me" generation, and it is a bit disappointing that the winner will be the one who can manipulate and lie the best.

This book was purchased with personal funds and no promotion of the book was solicited by the author or publisher.

This book may be purchased at Amazon:
Gone Girl: A Novel (Paperback)
Gone Girl: A Novel (Kindle)