Before joining Goodreads, Gone Girl is the type of book you'd always find me cuddled up with (in an awkward sitting pose, of course, because that's how I roll). I've always gravitated toward these fast-paced thrillers, these mysteries with a psychological twist. I was back in familiar territory with this novel, too, flipping pages rapidly, staying up way past my bedtime on a couple of occasions even though now I am old and can no longer function adequately on only four hours' sleep. Old! 
 The first half of this book was especially great. I had heard somewhere of a "plot twist," a major reveal at some point in the novel from a number of sources--it is hard to avoid hints like that!--but I did manage to avoid the substance of the actual revelation. So I began a kind of guessing game as I read, aware that something game-changing was going to happen but not knowing what, imagining all sorts of possibilities, plausible or otherwise. I ended up settling on the idea that (view spoiler)[Amy was still alive, somehow having faked her own death (hide spoiler)] pretty early on, but scratched that concept once (view spoiler)[the police discovered that a lot of blood had been spilled on the kitchen floor, mistakenly assuming that lots of blood meant that Amy was definitely dead (hide spoiler)]. So when it turned out I was completely right, why was I disappointed? You would think I'd have been all like, "Fuck yeah!" But for me, that is when this book took a bit of a nosedive. I had been enjoying the frenetic pace of the early parts of the book--the investigation into Amy's disappearance, the clues that were being uncovered, the ambiguity of Nick's thoughts and behavior, the discrepancies between Amy's diary entries and Nick's own internal dialogue which do not jive with each other in the least. But that is sort of the whole point of the first half of the novel, right? The severe disconnect between two people in a marriage, the way one partner's actions can be interpreted (or misinterpreted, as the case may be) by the other, the misunderstandings and misconceptions that occur, and the way, not just how little two people really know each other, but the way two people can deceive themselves into believing they are somehow different (or better!) than the way their partners see them. Is this something we all do? A defense mechanism, perhaps? I wonder if I also have a delusional view of myself, a way that I can live with myself even while my faults are on full display every single day of my marriage. EVERY SINGLE DAY. But my spouse is not deceived. Why does she stay with me? Because deep down she knows that I know all of her faults? That is the great thing about the first half of this novel, the questions it raises about ourselves. How astounding it is that the two sides of a single situation--or of a marriage--can be represented by two stories that are so dissimilar as to share practically nothing in common with one another. 
 But then you get to the second half of the novel and you quickly realize, as the entire thread by which you have come to understand the novel's characters begins to unravel, that nope. Nick and Amy are just super fucked up abnormal psychopaths, so you no longer need to worry about identifying yourself with either of them. You're totally fine. (In comparison, of course.) 
 It is hard to pull off a psychological thriller like this, I think, without devolving into the ridiculous. Every book in its genre falls into the same trap to a certain extent, and I get that, and I don't mean to judge it so harshly on that account, especially as I admit to being generally fond of these novels overall, but it was hard to reconcile the second half's nutso "out-there"-ness to the brilliance of its first half. And clearly I cannot pretend not to have stayed up late reading this book, so by that technical consideration alone I do give it three stars. READER, I LIKED IT! And I liked it enough that I intend to read more books by Gillian Flynn, one leg crossed over the other, hand on my chin, elbow on my upper leg. Super comfortable.