READ ALONG: GONE GIRL BY GILLIAN FLYNN PART III

If you are following a long with us, welcome back. Today will take us through 75%. If you are new to this Read Along, you can find Part I here, and Part II here.

**Spoilers Ahead** Again, if you don't want to be spoiled DO NOT GO FORTH!

**Shelley**

Courtney. Girl. This section was cray cray (because grown up, articulate sounding words just will not do the insanity of this section justice, IMHO).

So, Part Two: Boy Meets Girl starts with Amy. Precious little Amy. The Amy I felt so very sorry for. Crazy, Psycho, Nut-Job Amy. I think my exact text to you, Courtney, was "so...she's a cray cray liar??!!!"  Yes. Yes she is.

There is this interesting running commentary Amy has about the "Cool Girl" and how that has ruined women and men and relationships, in general. There were so many parts of this conversation that struck me as bitter and silly--just be who YOU want to be, Amy!! But, I also (strangely?) found myself agreeing with some of the things she said about women who put on the farce of "Cool Girl" (or whatever kind of girl) just to snare a guy. Be who you are (AMY!--sheesh).

I found her story, in this part, to wax and wane. Her deviousness and her plan and what motivated it and how she carried it out fascinated me and I found those parts to be page turners. When she ranted about who she REALLY was versus the personality/personalities that she pretended to be, I felt like rolling my eyes and skimming over paragraphs--I didn't, but I wanted to. When her two new 'friends' at the cabin royally screwed her over I was intrigued to see exactly how she was going to worm her way out of those dire straits. I absolutely loved it when people didn't respond to her the way she wanted or expected them to. Let me just gloat for one second: I KNEW IT!!! I knew that Desi's story was off and the last few pages of this section confirmed that intuition. YES!!!

Nick. I'm so sorry I doubted you. Talk about having a complete change of heart--It took me one paragraph into part two to decide that Nick's cheating paled in comparison to Amy's twisted plot to ruin his life. The contents of the shed, the impending arrest, the REAL stories of the two people Amy had previously tried to screw over...all of these were little twists of the knife in his back. I didn't blame Amy's parents, the police, the community, his lawyers, and even Go to have doubts or suspicions about him due to all of his lies and I could see that Amy had set a perfect trap for him. He had some missteps along the way..but the small bit of redemption he receives from the interview at the bar scene felt soooo good. His parts were so quick to read and I couldn't wait to see what he was going to figure out or do next.

One more section to go! I cannot wait to see how all of this goes down. What did you think of this part, Courtney?

**Courtney**

Shelley, I do think I about died starting Part II of the book. You see, I was on a lake in a boat with my husband fishing with very little phone service, and you were in a car driving not able to use any electronics. I frantically  had to sign into Twitter on my husband's phone just to at least message someone who would understand (You & Alessandra in this case!) to find later and I think an actual text to you was "What the ever loving ..... just happened?" (A side note here is yes, it is not fair that my husband's phone has service when mine doesn't and I am desperate...thank you for your sympathy!) 

I was in utter shock that at 50% Gillian Flynn actually let us all in on what the heck was really happening. We got soo little for soooooo long. Amy, psycho, psycho, psycho, psycho. (I'm starting to sound like Nick's father, just more censored!) I couldn't even form complete sentences. I don't really know what I envisioned happening, but that definitely wasn't it. I mean hell, I really thought Nick's father was going to play more of a part, but obviously that's exactly what Flynn was going for. 

I really got a kick out of her backwoods Ozarks adventure (since I live there, well not in the backwoods, but you get what I mean...maybe). She was seriously hung up on how different and unpretty and just average she looked with her disguise. You will see through all of the crazy thoughts this woman has that because of Amazing Amy, she honest to God has never had reason to doubt her self image or esteem. She "knew" she was amazing. Apparently in this case, just because everyone said it, it definitely must be true...just like the Internet! 

Wasn't it amazing how we were able to flip the switch to being back on Team Nick. He's a dirt bag, I mean Andie was 22 to his 33 when they started dating. Not all that great of a margin in the grand scheme of things, but his wife was 4 years OLDER than him. Low blow if you ask me. I really didn't want him to be the killer, which I didn't think he was because wouldn't that just be too obvious for him to have done it. I am going to use the word shocked a lot, but I was basically shocked at how elaborate her plan was from the MINUTE after she found out Nick was cheating on her. Ironically, she saw him the very first time he stepped out on her, but maybe if she hadn't went totally bat shit crazy she could have changed things around. BUT since we've already discussed their lack of communication skills and her inability to be her everyday psycho killer self, well here we are. 

I was heartbroken by Nick and Go's seeming demise. They are twins, and that twin bond is unbreakable. I think Go was genuinely heartbroken by all of the things that Nick never confided in her since she thought they shared everything. Another theme of the story, obviously, is do we ever really know everything about the people we're closest too? Dun, dun, dun. 

The interviews were great. Nick finally stepped up and started acting normal. I think an angel choir started singing when this happened. This was funny to me also because Amy was so sure that everything she was doing was going to make Nick putty in her hand, but he did the exact same thing to her. She is inevitably itching to go home because she genuinely believes him to be in love with her, and that is all she ever really wanted.