by Gillian Flynn
Published September 26th 2006
by Shae Areheart Books
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.
Though I finished this book the day I got it, weeks ago, I still cannot comprehend why it hasn't gotten more attention since its release in 2006. Even as a debut author, Flynn wove an ingenious plot that haunted me for days after turning the final page. I can't pin my obsession down to a specific aspect -- Sharp Objects just has that x-factor that readers crave in a good book.
Flynn's writing style may have had something to do with it. Her writing is like the most invasive and addictive of drugs. Every paragraph rubbed me raw, not withholding a single detail for the sake of anyone's sanity. Just reading the book made me feel scummy and unworthy, like all of the decay described in the book was leaking out onto my hands. It took all of my energy to remind myself that Sharp Objects is only a work of fiction -- though every word seemed to be trying to prove otherwise, twisting my psyche to the point where I realized that with the right (or more appropriately wrong) group of people, this book could easily become real. And that thought, you'll learn, is a terrifying one.
The corruption begins with the characters. I guess I assumed that the synopsis was exaggerating the insanity of this book, as many summaries do. But it didn't take long for me to realize that everyone in the disturbing cast of characters is guilty until proven innocent -- and very few of them passed the test. There was red herring after red herring thrown around in the book, but if a character was falsely accused of one crime, you could be sure that whatever they had really done was at least three times as horrific.
I wish I could get into details about the characters, but I truly can't without giving away key plot elements of the story. Flynn does a thorough job of making their relationships realistic, though, from family friends to estranged siblings. There were few moments where any characters blended together or any of their stories struck me as illogical, which is really something for Flynn to be proud of, considering I can't even count all the characters on my fingers and toes.
Though the characters are what brings the story to life, the plot is what gives them a story to bring to life. And oh man, what a plot it is. What starts as a simple murder mystery soon escalates to a conspiracy theory, which soon escalates to something much deeper and frightening than even the brightest of readers could predict. Camille starts off someone who seems to have gotten back on her feet, but after spending mere days in her hometown, she is diminished to a shivering pile of insecurities and demons that she never truly left behind. In a way, the message here could be that it's very difficult to come back to a place that you ran away from, even if you know that you can never really leave it all behind.
But of course, Gillian Flynn would never make it that simple.
Sharp Objects is a real razor blade in the rough.
12345 stars
0 comments:
Post a Comment