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.

Dark Places - Review

Title: Dark Places
Author: Gillian Flynn
Source: Library

Goodreads Summary:

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived–and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her. 

The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details–proof they hope may free Ben–Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club . . . and maybe she’ll admit her testimony wasn’t so solid after all.

As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby’s doomed family members–including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have driven him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town. Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started–on the run from a killer.


My thoughts:


This book is really dark and twisted, as you might imagine from the title.  But what can you expect from an author who wants to write this way, and as she says on her website, "Libraries are filled with stories on generations of brutal men, trapped in a cycle of aggression. I wanted to write about the violence of women."  When I read that, I knew I wanted to read all her books. It is just such a different viewpoint, and it really is fascinating.  Sometimes we forget what our own gender is capable of, almost sexist in a way, I hate to say.  Flynn's books are so rich in character and description, that she reminds you of this.  


I loved this book, and I loved that the main character Libby, as all the female protagonists in her books, is kind of unlikable.  She is pretty pathetic at first. living off the story of her tragedy, giving it life rather than moving on.  When she meets the Kill Club, she views it as a source to earn money, rather than working a real job.  She has always been secure in her role as the only survivor of her family massacre, steady and confident in her testimony that put her brother in prison.  As the story progresses, what she is looking for begins to change, as does her confidence.  


The book is written from multiple viewpoints, including Libby's mother's and her brother's.  I felt so sorry for her mom, I could really empathize with her, as a struggling mother. One particular scene stood out to me, where the mom is imagining what people must think of her children, in their ill-fitting hand me down clothes.  And then Ben...I don't know what to say. I don't want to say much more on this book, although I really want to.  I just don't want to ruin anything for the next reader.  I just highly recommend this book to anyone who likes this kind of gritty look at life. Like me. 

Gone Girl - Review

Title:  Gone Girl
Author: Gillian Flynn
Source: Friend

Goodreads Summary:

"'What are you thinking, Amy? The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?'"

Just how well can you ever know the person you love? This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren't his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what did really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife? And what was left in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war...


My thoughts:


Wow. Wow. This book was "amazing"! This book was given to me Thursday at book club by my friend Jill, who told me I absolutely had to read it, and that she could not put it down.  I started reading it last last night, and finished it today.  I couldn't stop either, it was so good.  And that "good" is a weighted, heavy, good with lots of emphasis on the good.  It was unbelievable. I loved it, and it is possibly the best book I have read this year.  And I already have all her books on hold at the library.


This is tough to review - there are so many small, delicate, intricate plot-workings that it reminds me of a brain map.   And I don't want to give anything away.  So, I feel I have nothing to really say except this book was exceptional and I think everyone should read it.  The writing was poetry in parts, and if it hadn't been a library book, I would have been underlining passages right and left.  Such as:


“Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if you ignore it.” 

"Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) "

" Ironic people always dissolve when confronted by earnestness, it's their kryptonite. "

I urge you all to read this, especially if like thrillers, mysteries, smart people, books about relationships, and of course if you like to be slightly scared and utterly obsessed with a book to the point you are reading it while brushing your teeth.  Read this on a bus, on a plane, on a beach or on the couch - no matter where, you will love it.

Just one olive, though.