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Welcome to our very own blog, LitChick readers!
Our next meeting is Thursday October 18th – time and place TBD
Important news: we are now officially registered as a book club at Parnassus! We are the Lit Chicks and they will make sure to have enough books on hand for our members. They also offer a 10% discount! Please let me know if you are a book buyer – I know some of you use the library or a Kindle, but if you like to buy your book and want to support Parnassus, let me know so I can let them know how many books we’ll need- once we pick our next book.
So, even though we’re not meeting this week (hope the packing is going well, soon-to-be fall breakers) I am just dying to discuss this book. I know not everyone has finished it yet. I waited as long as I could to start reading because I had a sneaking suspicion that it would be a quick read and for me, it absolutely was. Whether you liked the book or not, I think we can all probably agree that Gillian Flynn is a pretty good writer and that the novel was an unsettling, thought provoking, page turner. In fact, I actually just finished her first book, Sharp Objects. It took me only three days! And, I am waiting on a call from Parnassus about her second book, Dark Places, which they ordered for me. I’m on a Gillian Flynn bender, ya’ll.
So, if you are still reading the book, continue reading here at your own risk! I’m not posting any spoilers nor am I going to try to provide any kind of summary because doing so would give away parts of the plot or ruin the ending. But, I will tell you that when I read a good book, I like to immerse myself in it for a bit- you know, read reviews of it, consider discussion questions, learn more about the author. Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of that kind of information for Gone Girl. You guys may not be interested in all of these articles but most are short- perfect reading for the hook-up line or while you’re waiting for a lesson or practice to finish up. If you read nothing else, please read the discussion questions that I’ve posted after the links- we can use them as a guide for our meeting.
Oh- and Reese Witherspoon is producing a Gone Girl movie and is slated to play Amy. Who do you think should play Nick?? I vote for Ryan Gosling because I’ll use any excuse to look at Ryan Gosling.
And- this is our blog so please feel free to add your thoughts, comments, and suggestions! Let us know what you thought of the book and what you want to read next!
Happy reading 🙂
~beth
Gone Girl reviews
http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/8836-gone-girl-flynn?start=2
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20597896,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/books/gone-girl-by-gillian-flynn.html?_r=0
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/41648
Article about Gone Girl and Flynn’s other novels
Interview with Flynn and Flynn’s website
http://shelf-life.ew.com/2012/06/26/gillian-flynn-gone-girl-interview/
Gone Girl movie adaptation
http://www.booksnreview.com/articles/525/20120718/gone-girl-will-made-movie-reese-witherspoon.htm
http://www.wordandfilm.com/2012/07/gone-girls-hollywood-homecoming-to-star-reese-witherspoon/
GONE GIRL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Consider Amy and Nick Dunne as characters. Do you find them sympathetic…at first? Talk about the ways each reveals him/herself over the course of the novel. At what point do your sympathies begin to change (if they do)?
2. Nick insists from the beginning he had nothing to do with Amy’s disappearance. Did you believe him, initially? When did you begin to suspect that he might have something to do with it? At what point did you begin to think he might not?
3. How would you describe the couple’s marriage? What does it look like from the outside…and what does it look like from the inside? Where do the stress lines fall in their relationship?
4. On their fifth anniversary, Nick wonders, “What have we done to each other? What will we do?” Is that the kind of question that might present itself in any marriage? Yours? In other words, does this novel make you wonder about your own relationship? And can you ever truly know the other person?
5. Amy and Nick lie. When did you begin to suspect that the two were lying to one another…and to you, the reader? Why do they lie…what do they gain by it?
6. Do you find the Gillian Flynn’s technique of alternating first-person narrations compelling…or irritating. Would you have preferred a single, straightforward narrator? What does the author gain by using two different voices?
7. A skillful mystery writer knows which details to reveal and when to reveal them. How much do you know…and when do you know it? In other words, how good is Flynn at burying her clues in plain sight? Now that you know how the story plays out, go back and pick out the clues she left behind for you.
8. Flynn divides her narrative into two parts. Why? What are the difference between the two sections?
9. In what way does Amy’s background—her parents’ books about her perfection—affect her as an adult?
10. The Dunnes move to North Carthage, near Hannibal, the home of Mark Twain. How has Tom Sawyer been worked into Gone Girl…and why? What does that extra-textual detail add to the story? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Sawyer)
11. Did you suspect Nick’s big secret? Were you surprised—shocked—by it? Or did you have an inkling?
12. Does Amy try hard enough to like North Carthage? Or is she truly a duck out of water, too urbane to ever fit into a small, Midwestern town?
13. What are Amy’s treasure hunts all about? Why does she initiate them for Nick?
14. Critics, to a one, talk about the book’s dark humor and author’s wit. What passages of the book do you find particularly funny?
15. Movie time: who would you like to see play what part?
Green Hills LitChicks 