Sharp Objects - Review

Title: Sharp objects
Author: Gillian Flynn
Source: Library

Goodreads Summary:

WICKED above her hipbone, GIRL across her heart 
Words are like a road map to reporter Camille Preaker’s troubled past. Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, Camille’s first assignment from the second-rate daily paper where she works brings her reluctantly back to her hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls.

NASTY on her kneecap, BABYDOLL on her leg
Since she left town eight years ago, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed again in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille is haunted by the childhood tragedy she has spent her whole life trying to cut from her memory.

HARMFUL on her wrist, WHORE on her ankle
As Camille works to uncover the truth about these violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Clues keep leading to dead ends, forcing Camille to unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past to get at the story. Dogged by her own demons, Camille will have to confront what happened to her years before if she wants to survive this homecoming.

With its taut, crafted writing, Sharp Objects is addictive, haunting, and unforgettable.


My thoughts:


Flynn's first book, and the one I read last.  Just as powerful, scary, and haunting, as the summary above says.  All of Flynn's books are haunting, I think.  You have to read them until you finish, all in a big swoop, and then they stick with you.  You think about it after reading it for a while, a reading "hangover" I saw it described somewhere recently, when you are still stuck thinking about a book.  


This book's main character probably bothered me the most.  Not because she has carved words into every inch of her body, but because she seems so not there, no personality, a living doll.  Camille can't forge real adult relationships, there doesn't seem to be that much to her through most of the book, she just floats through in a haze of alcohol and drugs.  And really, all the characters were unlikable and unpleasant.  You couldn't identify or sympathize with a single one.  Regardless of this, I couldn't stop reading this book, and was blown away yet again by the end.  

One part that really bugged me, and won't give anything away, is a part where Camille, a 30-something woman, goes to a high school age party with minors.  It freaked me out, and was really creepy.  My mom read this book at the same time as me, and when we spoke on the phone about it, she brought up the same thing.  It is a little thing, but it gets under your skin, creeps you out, and you don't forget about it.  Flynn has a way of making her entire books like this - just uncomfortable enough, mysterious, dark, creepy, yet you have to know what happens.  If you like thriller/mystery books, this author is for you.