Book Review: Sharp Objects

Hello and welcome back to another review!

Hope you’re having a great day. Also, it’s October guys!!! October is my favorite month if you can’t tell

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Genre: thriller

TW: alcoholism, animal cruelty, attempted murder, corpse (description), drugs, drug abuse, eating disorder (mentioned), view full list here.

Blurb:

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the unsolved murder of a preteen girl and the disappearance of another. For years, 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 in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.

Goodreads / Amazon

Gillian Flynn is an American author and television critic for Entertainment Weekly. She has so far written three novels, Sharp Objects, for which she won the 2007 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the best thriller; Dark Places; and her best-selling third novel Gone Girl.

Her book has received wide praise, including from authors such as Stephen King. The dark plot revolves around a serial killer in a Missouri town, and the reporter who has returned from Chicago to cover the event. Themes include dysfunctional families,violence and self-harm.

In 2007 the novel was shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Writer, Crime Writers’ Association Duncan Lawrie, CWA New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers, winning in the last two categories.

Flynn, who lives in Chicago, grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated at the University of Kansas, and qualified for a Master’s degree from Northwestern University.

Website / Goodreads

This is my second book by Gillian Flynn and even though I liked Gone Girl better than this one, I’m ofiicially a huge fan of her writing now. I really love how intricate and amazing her writing style is. Also, I still can’t believe that this was her DEBUT NOVEL, for some reason I thought this was recently (like around 2014?) published, but it was until I finished and started looking for more Gillian Flynn that I discovered this was somehow published in 2006!!??

P.S. I prefer not looking into details about a book until I finished reading it because otherwise I would fall into a research hole and spoil the book for myself.🙂

So this book follows the story of Camelia Preaker, she’s a journalist with the Chicago Daily Post and things take a turn when she’s to be sent to her hometown so that they could be the first to report about the incidents happening there; a nine-years-old who was murdered just a year ago and a missing young girl now. The police doesn’t seem to have any idea how to solve this case and everyone is scared of who this person might be. Is it an outsider or someone they all know and interact daily with? Why do they go after little girls? What’s going on?!

As I said before, the writing style is just impeccable. I really enjoy reading Gillian’s books and I can’t wait to get to her other novels! One thing that I think has improved for her books though was how much predictable they are. In Gone Girl, you really are going in blind, things come in bits and pieces here and there while in this one it was quite obvious halfway through who the culprit is and we could confidently see where things are going way before the end. Nevertheless, you can’t help but to get absorbed by the the book that even though it’s very predictable, you’re hooked.

The characters were also another thing that I think are described amazingly well. They’re quite relatable and human, and we even get to know the other characters as well, which I greatly appreciate. The way she can write about such deranged people is just mind blowing, like we get inside their heads and get to kinda understand where they’re coming from even though it’s very wrong. Love that!!

All in all, I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a chilling thriller. Be sure to check out the trigger warnings first though!