You guys, that ending. I have feelings on that last scene, but obviously if I’m gonna talk about the last scene, there will be Gone Tonight spoilers. So, if you haven’t read the book yet, stop reading this and go read my non-spoiler reaction post instead.

Ok, still here? Now, about that ending.

Throughout the novel, Ruth has been worried that Catherine was actually a sociopath. In the final scenes, Ruth is up to her old stalking tricks because she’s worried that Catherine’s sociopath tendencies have been unlocked when she murdered her father.  Catherine’s whole career in geriatrics could be a cover for her to have access to untraceable, unnoticeable victims… or it could show that Catherine really is a good person.

I definitely thought the whole fire thing pointed to sociopath. Ruth’s one visit to a psychiatrist made it clear that fire setting was a key indicator, and Catherine set that fire and she says in her sections that she’s always been entranced by fires. 

What did you think? Did you think that Catherine was a sociopath too? Or was Ruth really the one who was a little twisted, and she exaggerated the possible dangers in her mind because she couldn’t let her daughter have any independence?

One other spoiler-y comment about Gone Tonight: I thought it was goofy that Ruth got all her dementia symptoms straight out of that book. She’s covered her trail for years, with so many other things, and made such good escape plans, so why didn’t she put milk in the cabinet or forget the word for TV instead? It seemed like she almost wanted Catherine to figure it out… Did you think that was weird too?