The following parser reads a file, parses it into a generic JsonElement, using Google's JsonParser.parse method, and then converts all the items in the generated JSON into a native Java List<object> or Map<String, Object>.
Note: The code below is based off of Vikas Gupta's answer.
GsonParser.java
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Map.Entry;
import com.google.gson.GsonBuilder;
import com.google.gson.JsonArray;
import com.google.gson.JsonElement;
import com.google.gson.JsonObject;
import com.google.gson.JsonParser;
import com.google.gson.JsonPrimitive;
public class GsonParser {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            print(loadJsonArray("data_array.json", true));
            print(loadJsonObject("data_object.json", true));
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    public static void print(Object object) {
        System.out.println(new GsonBuilder().setPrettyPrinting().create().toJson(object).toString());
    }
    public static Map<String, Object> loadJsonObject(String filename, boolean isResource)
            throws UnsupportedEncodingException, FileNotFoundException, JsonIOException, JsonSyntaxException, MalformedURLException {
        return jsonToMap(loadJson(filename, isResource).getAsJsonObject());
    }
    public static List<Object> loadJsonArray(String filename, boolean isResource)
            throws UnsupportedEncodingException, FileNotFoundException, JsonIOException, JsonSyntaxException, MalformedURLException {
        return jsonToList(loadJson(filename, isResource).getAsJsonArray());
    }
    private static JsonElement loadJson(String filename, boolean isResource) throws UnsupportedEncodingException, FileNotFoundException, JsonIOException, JsonSyntaxException, MalformedURLException {
        return new JsonParser().parse(new InputStreamReader(FileLoader.openInputStream(filename, isResource), "UTF-8"));
    }
    public static Object parse(JsonElement json) {
        if (json.isJsonObject()) {
            return jsonToMap((JsonObject) json);
        } else if (json.isJsonArray()) {
            return jsonToList((JsonArray) json);
        }
        return null;
    }
    public static Map<String, Object> jsonToMap(JsonObject jsonObject) {
        if (jsonObject.isJsonNull()) {
            return new HashMap<String, Object>();
        }
        return toMap(jsonObject);
    }
    public static List<Object> jsonToList(JsonArray jsonArray) {
        if (jsonArray.isJsonNull()) {
            return new ArrayList<Object>();
        }
        return toList(jsonArray);
    }
    private static final Map<String, Object> toMap(JsonObject object) {
        Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();
        for (Entry<String, JsonElement> pair : object.entrySet()) {
            map.put(pair.getKey(), toValue(pair.getValue()));
        }
        return map;
    }
    private static final List<Object> toList(JsonArray array) {
        List<Object> list = new ArrayList<Object>();
        for (JsonElement element : array) {
            list.add(toValue(element));
        }
        return list;
    }
    private static final Object toPrimitive(JsonPrimitive value) {
        if (value.isBoolean()) {
            return value.getAsBoolean();
        } else if (value.isString()) {
            return value.getAsString();
        } else if (value.isNumber()){
            return value.getAsNumber();
        }
        return null;
    }
    private static final Object toValue(JsonElement value) {
        if (value.isJsonNull()) {
            return null;
        } else if (value.isJsonArray()) {
            return toList((JsonArray) value);
        } else if (value.isJsonObject()) {
            return toMap((JsonObject) value);
        } else if (value.isJsonPrimitive()) {
            return toPrimitive((JsonPrimitive) value);
        }
        return null;
    }
}
FileLoader.java
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.Reader;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URISyntaxException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class FileLoader {
    public static Reader openReader(String filename, boolean isResource) throws UnsupportedEncodingException, FileNotFoundException, MalformedURLException {
        return openReader(filename, isResource, "UTF-8");
    }
    public static Reader openReader(String filename, boolean isResource, String charset) throws UnsupportedEncodingException, FileNotFoundException, MalformedURLException {
        return new InputStreamReader(openInputStream(filename, isResource), charset);
    }
    public static InputStream openInputStream(String filename, boolean isResource) throws FileNotFoundException, MalformedURLException {
        if (isResource) {
            return FileLoader.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(filename);
        }
        return new FileInputStream(load(filename, isResource));
    }
    public static String read(String path, boolean isResource) throws IOException {
        return read(path, isResource, "UTF-8");
    }
    public static String read(String path, boolean isResource, String charset) throws IOException {
        return read(pathToUrl(path, isResource), charset);
    }
    @SuppressWarnings("resource")
    protected static String read(URL url, String charset) throws IOException {
        return new Scanner(url.openStream(), charset).useDelimiter("\\A").next();
    }
    protected static File load(String path, boolean isResource) throws MalformedURLException {
        return load(pathToUrl(path, isResource));
    }
    protected static File load(URL url) {
        try {
            return new File(url.toURI());
        } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
            return new File(url.getPath());
        }
    }
    private static final URL pathToUrl(String path, boolean isResource) throws MalformedURLException {
        if (isResource) {
            return FileLoader.class.getClassLoader().getResource(path);
        }
        return new URL("file:/" + path);
    }
}