Review: Sharp Objects
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
@17%
I’ve had this, and Flynn’s other books, for at least six months and am just now cracking this bad boy open. I don’t quite know what to make of the story yet. The writing style is a bit peculiar, but the narrator is a strange bird. She’s a reporter for a small Chicago newspaper. When her editor sends her back home to a tiny Missouri town to investigate the murder of a small girl and the disappearance of another, she quickly assimilates, but hates what she’s doing.
After meeting her mother, sister, and some other townsfolk, the mystery surrounding who harmed these little girls seems to be solved; I think the real mystery is why she did it.
I’d love to have more time to read because things are just heating up. Camille’s mother is a piece of work. A pristine, proper, poised southern belle who looks upon her eldest child with so much disappointed annoyance it’s caused me to recoil. Then there is her baby sister – mother’s precious China doll – living a double life at thirteen. Between them is another sister, long dead, but ever-present. Adora, their mother, she has some skeletons. I think Camille will put the pieces together to solve this mystery, if she doesn’t let the hot-shot detective from Kansas City distract her too much.
It’s been a slow tick, but I’ve been reading in fits and starts since I began this book a few days ago. At chapter four a lot has been revealed with imagery that is unique and captivating.
UPDATE:
@50%
I started this book having absolutely no idea what it was about. One of my co-workers had read Gone Girl and thought I should give Flynn a try. I should have checked out her website to give myself a bit of a buffer before I downloaded the book. http://gillian-flynn.com/sharp-objects/
I’m about halfway through and have every urge to drop out of life for half a day and barrel through the rest of this book. I must know how things are resolved…IF they are resolved.
Camille has revealed more of herself, her demons, her self-image, her woes. As I read I wondered why she wrote on herself with pens and markers. Why was the act so significant? She’s a cutter. I never had any personal experience with this, so reading Camille’s thoughts of how she feels around others (particularly her mother and half-sister) burn through me just as words brand themselves invisibly on her flesh.
It’s hard to admit to liking a book about little girls who were brutalized and murdered and whose savior could have easily been in their same shoes, but I do not want to put this down. I yelled at my husband last night when he asked me a question while I tried to squeeze in a chapter before we went to our son’s curriculum night. The storytelling is so gripping with little nuances of the characters that speak so loudly, yet in a whisper. “…her face so perfect and character-free she could have just popped out of the womb. They all seemed unfinished.” That’s one of my favorite lines, so far.
I think Adora, Camille’s mother, is the perp, although that was made rather clear early on (unless my sleuthing skills are way off). Like I said in my earlier review, the mystery isn’t of whodunit, but why. These folks in Wind Gap have deep closets, and they’re filled with skeletons.
UPDATE:
@100%
Sharp Objects – Flynn, Gillian, 100%
Holy crap! That’s the best way to sum up my feelings. Really well done, although not entirely the mystery I anticipated. This was one helluva journey. The characters and settings were vivid. The final act went too fast, as all final acts do. I was not ready for this book to end. Although there were no loose ends, I still had a lot of questions. But that would probably end up being a hundred pages of boring ‘where are they now’ kind of stuff.
Poor Camille, her family is a few chips short of a taco plate. I’m so glad I finally read this book. I can’t wait to get into her other work.
My Passion's Pen 