Twisted Love

Warning: The following review contains spoilers and, ahem, not-very-kid-friendly language. If you have not read the books and would appreciate discovering the twists and turns as you read along, you could stop reading this right now. Otherwise, proceed to the rest of the post. Enjoy. 

Gone Girl – ★★★★☆

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Marriage can be a real killer.

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy’s diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

After finishing the book, the first thing that came to mind is: sick. Here is a dark, twisted tale of a married couple–or should I say two disturbed individuals stuck in a marriage they both love and hate?

On the surface, Nick and Amy Dunne seem to be the beautiful, perfect couple. The illusion is shattered when Amy goes missing on their fifth year anniversary. And then everything quickly goes undone for Nick. The weak man underneath the attractive façade emerges as the days go by. His secrets are slowly revealed: he feels like a failure, he hates his wife, he has a young mistress. And soon, the police and the media are eyeing him as the abusive killer husband.

Trapped as he is in public suspicion, of course he had to find a way to clear his name. And he tries to do that by following the anniversary treasure hunt which Amy does every year. That year, it began with the silver box found in their room during the investigation. Her clues, usually based on her recollections and almost impossible for Nick to decipher, were almost a giveaway that year. And as he unravels each clue, he realizes that the places where she left her clues are both memorable places for them as well as places where he met with his mistress. He was quite disturbed by this, and the fact that his wife knew about his mistress but did not ever confront him about it. He began to suspect that he was being framed by his own wife for her own supposed murder.

Pages from Amy’s “secret” diary make up a significant portion of the book. In it, we see beautiful Amy as the loving, devoted wife hurt and abused by her husband. It just begs for sympathy from the reader, you know? Which is exactly the point, as all of it are lies. Well, almost. The thing is Amy alters her reactions to their true experiences in the diary to portray the perfect wife that she most absolutely is not.

And therein lies Amy’s (and the author’s) brilliance. She is the consummate bitch (Amy, not the author). Every-fucking-thing is a setup. Her absence and the staged scene that verily screams that her husband killed her. Her “perfect wife” diary. Her supposed pregnancy and close friendship with their neighbor. Her maxed out credit card bills with Nick’s supposed purchases. She thought of and planned everything. She is fucking brilliant, I gotta give her that. She even had her real death planned, staged just so to further incriminate Nick of her supposed murder.

But why go to all that trouble, you ask? Because after a few years of their marriage, their masks have finally slipped and revealed their true faces and she did not like what she saw. Because she hated what had become of the Nick she married. Because she hated what had become of her because of that. And because she discovered that Nick cheated on her. Bottom line is, she is a deeply disturbed woman who has no compunction about exacting punishment upon those who pisses her off (whether intentionally or not), as is revealed in Nick’s investigation about her past “transgressors”.

Of course, every character has a hubris. And hers is that deep in her twisted heart, she really does love Nick and just wants him and their once-perfect relationship back. Who would have thought, right? And Nick uses that to bait her into coming back so he could kill her for putting him up to all the pain, humiliation and almost-ruin that her being “missing” brought. Damn sweet couple.

And come back she did after hearing Nick’s “pleas” on media for her to come home because he’s finally seen the error of his ways and wants to make up for them. Back straight from the “dead” (while in reality just plain hiding) with another spun story to tell absolving Nick of all suspicions of crime (because she wanted him back of course) and a dead body in her wake (the dead body of the only guy who helped her while she’s “missing” no less). And of course, of course, she has the (carefully fabricated) evidence to back up every minute detail of her sordid story.

So, was Nick able to kill her after all? Of course not. Not with all the media hype and eyes on them both. Did he get his revenge? Forget it. He has nothing on Amy. Nothing. If anything, he became a model husband after all that fiasco. Not because he did love her (or maybe he did, he just could not bring himself to accept it) but mostly because he is afraid she’d do him harm if he offends or displeases her. In Nick’s own words, “I am a great husband because I am very afraid she may kill me.”

His clandestine plan of attack was to write a memoir in secret that reveals all about his sociopath murderer wife. And title it Psycho Bitch as a little inside joke. So he went to her with the manuscript, with all the intention of crushing her or at the very least terrify her. But as usual, Amy is a dozen steps ahead of him. She had news for him too, that she’s pregnant with his child. And of course, there is no question that it is his child. So would it be his book or his child?

Nick’s decision is his salvation. He made peace with the fact that he hated his father and used that to not become the same kind of man. He decided to be the hero and be a real father to his child, to undo whatever machinations and mental/emotional/psychological damage his wife could and might do to the kid. And here, finally Nick shines.

Needless to say, Amy got her cake and ate it too, Nick all pussy-whipped at her side forever.

Did they live happily ever after, after that? In a twisted sense, I guess they did. And in the end, I can’t help thinking that they are indeed perfect for each other. Despite all the gore and dark details of the story, underneath it is a unique love story between fire and ice, earth and sky. They may have their irreconcilable differences, but they know each other, know what makes the other tick. As individuals, they are both dark and flawed and disturbed. But together, they actually bring out the best in each other. The positive, happy masks they put on for each other do become them. And isn’t that what love is supposed to do in the first place? 😉