Gillian Flynn is known to readers and moviegoers alike for her vibrant, evil, female characters. In a 2015 piece entitled, “I was not a nice little girl…” she outlines her belief that women can be just as bad as men and goes on to explain the ways it manifests in real life and in her books. 

Villains are important in stories to better define what the main character is up against and the nastier the villain, the better. This story dynamic is taught early on when our children watch Disney movies featuring some of the best of the baddies: the Evil Queen in Snow White (no name needed), Ursula, the sea witch in the Little Mermaid, Cruella de Vil in the Dalmation movies and Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. 

            Flynn refines the unreliable narrator into a fully realized person, sometimes repentant and often not which makes her novels fascinating to read. Below is her debut novel.