Sharp Objects: A Novel
by Gillian Flynn
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Book Reviews of Sharp Objects: A Novel
Book Review: Wow -- what a debut!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an extremely well-written and forceful book, especially for a first novel. There's nothing remotely tentative about this story of Chicago reporter Camille Preaker's return to her little southeast Missouri hometown to do a story on the murder of two local young girls less than a year apart. It may be the work of a serial killer and the local head cop is out of his depth, so they've called in a homicide specialist from Kansas City. But the murder investigation is only part of the story. More mesmerizing, and a good deal creepier, is Camille's re-examination of her own family, which brings new meaning to the description "dysfunctional." Camille's younger sister, Marian, died two decades ago at about the same age as the recently murdered girls, having been "cared for" by Adora, their vampiric mother. Then, a few years later, Adora had another daughter, Camille's half-sister, Amma, who, at thirteen, is extraordinarily pretty, precociously sexual, and who bosses the clique that runs the school with calculated cruelty. She's very much her mother's daughter. Stephen King, not noted for gushing endorsements of other people's work, comments on the jacket that the effect of the narration is cumulative, and that's exactly right. As you move farther and farther into this horror, you dread what you know is probably coming, but you're unable to look away, to stop reading. Flynn's style is both unadorned and exquisitely sharp. The former comes out in Camille's matter-of-fact description of her own pathology: She's a "cutter," having spent most of her life incising words into her body with knives and razors, cultivating the scars until she dare not wear anything but long sleeves and pants legs. The latter is demonstrated by the fact that this book just leaps with sly, quotable lines: "It was a natural gift for Adora, making other women feel incidental."
A visiting cop "peeled the label of the empty beer bottle next to him and smoothed it out onto the table. Messy. A sure sign he'd never worked in a bar."
In describing the way her mother manipulates everyone, Camille relates how the death of her little sister was so useful in that regard. No matter what anyone said, "my mother would not be distracted from her grief. To this day it remains a hobby."
Or, "Reporters are like vampires. They can't come into your house without your invitation, but once they're there, you won't get them out till they've sucked you dry."
Or, "`So hard to get good help these days,' she muttered earnestly, unaware no one really says that who's not on TV."
Or, "Like all rural towns, Wind Gap has an obsession with machinery. Most homes own a car and a half for every occupant (the half being an antique collectible, or an old piece of crap on blocks, depending on the income bracket)."
One of my favorites, in describing an acquaintance's rather bland husband: "He was good-looking if you looked at him long enough."
Flynn also has the knack of setting an entire mood by describing a single detail. For example, the little town of Wind Gap snaps into focus when Camille notes that she found the police chief "banging the dent out of a stop sign at the corner of Second and Ely, a few blocks from the police station." Or, of a group of 13-year-old girls passing around a bottle of rum: "The rim of the bottle was ringed with pink lip gloss."
Damn, that's good stuff.
This is one of those books you'll keep thinking about for months. Flynn is definitely going on my list of new authors to watch.
Book Review: Can you handle this book?
Summary: 5 Stars
I'll be honest. I enjoy being freaked out by a book. I enjoy reading about dark and disturbing topics that make you want to make sure you're reading with your back to the wall so nothing can creep up on you.
Here's the deal with this book. It is dark, disturbing, twisted, manic. These words continued to swirl in my head as I read about Camille Preaker in Sharp Objects: A Novel. Words are important to Camille because she's lived the larger part of her life by carving, cutting, and slicing words all over her skin.
There is no question about it. I could not have been more caught up in the disturbing novels of Gillian Flynn, both Sharp Objects: A Noveland Dark Places: A Novel. I really can't tell you which one was my favorite, but I'm thinking it's neck and neck, with Sharp Objects coming out as the winner by just a hair. And it's simply just because when I first picked it up, I had no idea that the disturbing and dark story would be one I would get so swept up in.
While traveling for business, on a whim I picked Sharp Objects while waiting for my flight. I don't even know how to explain the premise without re-freaking myself out. But, allow me to valiantly try.
Camille Preaker is a woman in her thirties, and a journalist at a small newspaper in Chicago who is sent to research and write about a horrible crime of two children murdered in her hometown. It's a hometown that for Camille, has such terrible and dark memories, that she is repulsed and afraid of taking the assignment. Why would she want to visit the old Victorian home that her compulsively neurotic mother lives in, and which her gorgeous teenage half-sister that she barely knows seems to run? The home is the reason why Camille's turned into a vegetarian, which is fairly expected since it's situated on her family's pig farm, and the sounds of slaughter don't really sit well with Camille. Camille's already experienced enough with her sister's death when she was young, and has been compelled since then to destroy her body by razor-writing insults like whore and nasty over every inch of her body that she can cover up with clothing. Not to mention, she just now come out of a six month stay in a psychiatric institution. She's supposed to be in recovery but she sometimes will drag her palms over sharp edges to make them bleed. Going back to Wind Gap, Missouri, the source of her traumas to investigate the murders of children just isn't a good idea.
Dark. Disturbed. Twisted. Manic. These are the words always swirling through my head as I read. I was held hostage by this book, and for two days during my business travel, I attended all meetings anxiously, waiting for when I could run back up to my hotel room after dinner and dive into the pages. Gillian Flynn's writing left you troubled, with a sinking and uncomfortable feeling as you turned the pages and pulled more of Camille's life into your mind. And what you think is the ending really isn't. Suffice it to say, when the mystery of the murdered children is truly solved, I was stunned and couldn't sleep. I thought about this story for days and still can't quite put it out of my head.
Book Review: Just Plain Good!
Summary: 5 Stars
Camille is a thirty year old strikingly beautiful news paper reporter in Chicago. She hasn't been all that good at reporting news so far, but her nurturing boss has high hopes regardless. When two little girls go missing in Camille's home town, Wind Gap, her boss "Curry" sends her home to Southern Missouri in order to get the scoop. Yet, Camille doesn't go easily because she's got plenty of skeletons in her closet and every one of them is waiting back in Wind Gap for her arrival.
Fresh out of the insane asylum six months earlier for cutting words into her flesh for years, Camille's character is so well written and developed she jumps right off the page. The writer was so skilled that I felt as though I honestly understood Camille. This in my opinion is a huge feat. Considering, the fact that Camille has cut words into her flesh from ankle to wrist, drinks likes a fish, and is outrageously promiscuous. Her thoughts and needs were perfectly conveyed to the reader, I was never at a loss.
When Camille arrives in Wind Gap she is greeted by her cold, beautiful, and meticulous mother, Adora, and the hunting memories of her dead half sister, Meriam, whom died in her preteens.
Camille's mother Adora comes from money and married into it. Her husband Alan is a waif like shadow who has very little opinions or personality. Camille's living half sister Amma whom is only 13, is moody, and cruel, but also rules the town with her family's money and good looks. Camille knows very little of Amma seeing how she was born after Camille left home and moved to Chicago. At first Amma is a bit of an enigma to Camille, that all changes.
For instance in the beginning of the book you can tell the writing is good, but what else, you question. You think things are just generically awkward between Camille and her family. The typical jealous and untrustworthy mother. The rebellious teen half sister. The fly on the wall step father. Yet, as the pages turn and you get to know Camille and her family better you start to see things differently. The fear and misery of who and what Camille is sneaks up on you. By the middle of the book you almost feel tainted by the sickness she has endured. The sickness they all have endured.
Meanwhile, Camille is on the hunt for the story and the two missing girls. Who both turn up dead and with no teeth. Things become frightening and dark. Camille's search for the truth leads her down a slippery slope into discovering her worst fears. She becomes more and more unpredictable and flighty. Her choices more and more irrational. Everything starts to unravel into a macabre scene, and she isn't the only player. The writer slowly puts the puzzle pieces of Adora's and Amma's personality together creating beautiful monsters in the end.
What a great book! There are almost too many good things to say about it. It was intriguing, spooky, thought provoking, and outrageously depictive. I loved the way the writer described things, you could taste, hear, smell it all. Fabulous charter development. For this to be the first Novel by this author is also impressive. I have high hopes for anything else she writes!
Book Review: Dark, Insightful, Disturbing
Summary: 4 Stars
Book Club Review
Sharp Objects
by Gillian Flynn
Our book club's book for April was SHARP OBJECTS, by Gillian Flynn. We decided on this book because we wanted to try reading something that is more issues-based, and this is a story about a young woman who engages in the disturbing practice of "cutting" (self-mutilation). As a club we do not mind an intense read, and we thought we could all learn more about the psychology behind cutting by reading it.
The narrator of the book is a reporter for a third-rate Chicago newspaper who is sent back to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri, to investigate the murder of a little girl--the second such murder in a short amount of time, which makes it seem like a serial killer is on the loose. The editor thinks that Camille Preaker will be able to get the townspeople to open up and talk, because she is a native. However, Camille goes back only under duress, because she has a very (and I do mean VERY) unpleasant relationship with her mother and stepfather (she doesn't even know who her real father is). She also has a sexually precocious half-sister who alternates between being a sort of Lolita and an almost catatonic clinging vine. Camille's investigation uncovers some truly creepy things going on, including the fact that the two murdered girls were actually quite hateful, and that her own mother had odd relationships with those girls. To say more would be a spoiler.
We found a lot to like and admire about this book. First, the author is an incredibly sharp writer, full of insights and observations that are often disturbing, delivered in a way that slaps you across the face with their vividness. Second, it was interesting to see the author going so much against "type" -- in other words, having the audacity/courage to make little girls into nasty, vicious creatures instead of sweet, innocent victims. The insights into the narrator's "cutting" are deep and disturbing...The reader comes to realize the source of her behavior and how she is almost powerless to stop herself from playing out the script created in her childhood. There are also some really intense plot surprises here, even if the middle of the book drags a bit.
What we liked less were some of the more "Southern Gothic" aspects of the book, moments that seemed like they were lifted directly from MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL. Several of the characters are little more than cliches, and the pacing was inconsistent. Still, we all agreed that Flynn is a terrific writer, and we look forward to more by her. It probably does go without saying that this book isn't for the squeamish. It is true noir but it does have just that little ray of hope/possible redemption that keeps you rooting for the heroine.
Book Review: Great Debut Novel but Characters and Narrative need to be fleshed out
Summary: 3 Stars
This debut novel is articulately written. Bordering on the bizarre and grotesquely unbelievable, this novel examines one of the most dysfunctional 'Mommy Dearest' families ever to hit the written page. The novel's genre is hard to describe. It is part thriller, part psychological mystery, partly a drama about family dysfunction, part murder mystery and partly a drama/memoir of the impacts of abuse.
The protagonist has a history of self-mutilation, cutting herself so badly that there are no areas on her body except for her face and hands that she can't leave uncovered if she wants to hide her secret. She has to wear turtlenecks, long sleeve shirts, pants, etc. From a clinical perspective, a cutter is someone who suffers excruciating emotional pain that is persistent, hard to identify, and takes up all of a person's consciousness. Usually, cutters have a history of abuse/trauma in their own backgrounds. Cutting, as a metaphorical blood-letting, causes pain in a specific place and allows the pain to be isolated to one part of the body. As the blood flows, the pain goes. In theory, once the blood is let, the pain identified and the intensity of the pain decreased, one is better able to function. However, cutting is not a good coping mechanism because the true source of the pain is not addressed, self-mutilation creates it's own shame-based symptoms, and cutting becomes a form of self-medication rather than treatment for root causes. Cutting is a short-term coping mechanism for a deep-rooted and serious underlying pathology.
The protagonist of this page-turning novel is a journalist who returns home after many years with no contact with her mother and step-father. From the tim she enters the house, the reader has goose bumps because of the creepiness and fear-factor that the house and its inhabitants radiate. She notices that her younger sister is sexually promiscuous and using a lot of drugs. This reminds her of her own sexual promiscuity and drug use when she was an adolescent. She decides to investigate and find out what is lying in the dank underbelly of her familial home.
There is an abundant sense of creepiness about many of the characters. However, no character is fully fleshed out. The narrative is interesting and the writing is good, but there are too many odds and ends in the narrative that dead-end or are not followed through with. Because I liked the book and it had so much potential, I wanted to know more of the 'who, what and why'.
I recommend buying this book or taking it our of the library because despite criticisms, it is a good book. Once the author gets her phenomenal gift for writing congruent with a well-told tale and flushed out characters, there could be some great surprises in store!