I guess I'll start by saying I saw the movie first. I was never much of a thriller or mystery reader, but I've always liked those types of movies. This is a rare instance where I think the movie finally did the book justice. I'll attribute it to casting, because I think Ben Affleck is Nick Dunne incarnate. The capacity to be charming and likeable, mostly indifferent, with maximum asshole potential. Rosamund Pike played an excellent Amy. The movie stayed true to the book and it's plot. 
 Which brings me to the dilemma, I already knew absolutely everything that was going to happen before it did happen. I mean it's not the worst thing ever, I enjoyed the book. It was well written with an interesting, convoluted plot. I wonder if I would have found the book more exciting if I hadn't seen the movie first. Oddly, I also wonder if I would have found the book less interesting without the movie to fall back on. Without the idea in my head of Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne, and Rosamund's cold blue psycho bitch eyes. Probably not, but I wonder. 
 *Spoilers ahead if you know nothing about Gone Girl* 
 Anyway, as I said before the book is very well written. There were no threads left hanging. Amy, god help me, but I sort of admired on multiple levels. Not like I aspire to be a sociopath, but just the brilliance of it, all the discipline it would take to pull something like that off. Nick is somehow both sympathetic and an asshole. And if you don't sort of hate him through out the story, you will hate him by the end (I mean this in a good way, I didn't hate reading him I just hated his character). Because he sort of deserves everything he gets. But you still kind of wish that somewhere in the epilogue Amy gets justice. Go (Margot- I think) was pretty great. Probably the most "real", most genuine character in the book. 
 The only thing that kept this from being a five star read was the ending, and in a weird way, Nick's character assassination. Nick and Amy both claim that they are equals, they are well matched. Well matched, maybe, but Amy outplays Nick on almost every level imaginable, and then at the end you sort of get the feeling that she has brain washed him into being happy by way of pretend. 
 I didn't think this was true to Nick's character. I wanted to believe he was better than that. Smarter than that. In this much, I felt like Go. I don't really believe that Nick couldn't just pick up and leave once she came home. Was his credibility shaky? The book tries to make it sound as if it was, but the worst thing he was truly guilty of was cheating. Which is shitty, but not criminal, as would be murder, kidnap or rape. Which we have established, he is not guilty of. The vomit is the trap that he claims keeps him there, and the threat of Amy's "Attempted Murder" charge. But let us not forget, that the cops saw holes in Amy's story too. That when she just magically re-appeared, everything was a little too neat and too tidy in pointing the cops toward Nick, when he is in fact innocent. What did the cops really have besides a diary entry to prove the "attempted murder"? This is not enough evidence. It would never stand up in court. Once the vomit was found and discarded, there was no more evidence. Nick should have left. 
 Otherwise- an entertaining story all around. I'm looking forward to reading a Flynn novel that I know nothing about going in.