The Most Influential Thriller of the Century So Far

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The world of modern thrillers has two just eras: Before Gone Girl and After Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn’s 2012 instant blockbuster didn’t invent the unreliable narrator, of course, but it broke the mold and ushered in a new era of domestic thrillers focused on toxic relationships and female antiheroes.

Often imitated, never duplicated—to say a book is “the next Gone Girl” is to spoil it from the outset—Gone Girl continues to put up big numbers.

Estimated total sales exceed 20 million copies. The novel comes in at #9 on Amazon’s best-selling books of all time, right behind The Handmaid’s Tale and just ahead of Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s ranked #22 on Goodreads’s most popular books of all time. New York Times readers voted it into #49 on the 100 best books of the century so far. (It did not make the critics’ top 100.)

Flynn didn’t just change publishing with the ultimate unlikable female narrator. Main character Amy Dunne’s legendary “Cool Girl” speech entered the discourse and has become a fixture in feminist media analysis.

Hear our conversation about this groundbreaking novel and its continuing impact on Zero to Well-Read.

Girl, Listen to This

For a very fun chat about the 2014 adaptation, catch Jeff, Rebecca, and Book Riot alum Amanda Nelson on this re-run of our Adaptation Nation episode about the film. (Pour one out for Adaptation Nation)

For a juicy little history lesson, let us tell you about the original gone girl.

Girl(s) to the Front

This really is the book that launched a thousand “girl” books. I challenged myself to free-type as many mystery and thriller books with “girl” in the title as I could think of, and that I think came out after Gone Girl. Here goes!

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, The Good Girl by Mary Kubica, The Girl I Used to Be by April Henry, Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll, The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes, Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter, The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe

And that’s without a Google!

Girl, Get in the Time Machine

Here’s some OG Book Riot coverage about Gone Girl, including coverage from back when Jeff basically had my job, and one of Emily Martin’s very first posts for the site.

The inaugural edition of a now-defunct series called Front-to-Backlist that’s such a deep cut, Jeff was still Editor-in-Chief! (2012) Rebecca’s first Gone Girl thoughts, including a meditation on the Cool Girl monologue. Proof that everyone’s wig was blown back from Gone Girl from day one (2012) Why we should stop searching for the next Gone Girl (2017)

Girl, Say What?

You know what time it is: out-of-context show quotes.

“If she’s unreliable, don’t ruin that for me!” “What Days Inn has a minibar???” “You smell like DEET for three and a half months.” “I’m referring to myself in the third person here, that’s how ashamed of myself I am at this.” “This is still played on the radio here in Portland, where the dream of the late 90s and 2012 is still alive.” “Stoked to see so many hot dogs get mentioned on the page!” “Book Riot (1:20:46) don’t think I can hear some of the I don’t think I can hear some of the words that come out of Miss Piggy’s mouth. Also, the hot dog line at the end is very fraught if Miss Piggy has to say.” As a known Miss Piggy stan, I hyperventilated through this whole bit.