Sharp Objects

I read this a couple years after Gone Girl left me OBSESSED with Gillian Flynn's deceptively simple and effortless prose around murder, violence, and trauma and while I can't say this didn't disappoint (me specifically) it was still an engrossing book about generational trauma and mommy issues in a gorgeous (ostentatious mayhaps?) Southern Gothic backdrop. As good as the HBO adaptation was I agree with other reviewers that the book ending is better.

Possibly its only real flaw is Gone Girl's success because in comparison this book left me wanting for a certain quality I can't explain. There's something about the complexity and duplicity of Nick and Amy's characters you don't find with Camille and her relationships in this book. Everything is much more straightforward. (Relatively speaking of course.)

EDIT: someone else mentioned transphobia (briefly) in book from main character that I totally forgot about... red flag for sure. :(

(Ironically I read this the last time I myself went home for Christmas 'bout ten years ago. lol)

Recently going to see Gone Girl at the cinema reminded me that I still had Sharp Objects languishing unread on our Kindle. It's the third Gillian Flynn novel I have read but apparently the first she wrote. The storyline here is definitely not for the fainthearted and at points I felt quite queasy reading it. The central theme of two girls in a small town in Missouri being murdered is obviously horrific, but having read several crime thrillers over the years, I have pretty much become immune to the emotional pull of murdered young fictional women and girls. It feels bizarre writing that but so many novels start with such a death that it is almost a prerequisite. Where Sharp Objects differs is that our viewpoint into the story comes via Camille, a journalist sent back to cover the story unfolding in her hometown. Camille not only has self harmed and in plenty of detail, but leads us into the bosom of her cold, dysfunctional family as she tries to come to terms with her personal past and the death of her younger sister. The relationships within her home and trailing our across the town are cleverly included in the story, explaining why she is as she is. I don't think Sharp Objects is as good a story as Gone Girl and it doesn't have the former's intensity, but I appreciate that they both have unusual central female characters who are damaged and bizarre, yet memorable and definitely never stereotypical.

Oh, this was not my favorite, I’m afraid. Sharp Objects is skillfully written but the story is much darker than I’d normally go for (I read it for a book club), and the heroine just struggled throughout - I never felt happy for her and I had trouble relating to her, so, in the end, it felt like witnessing the life of someone I cared for but couldn’t connect with just unravel, in truly awful ways, while I could do nothing but watch. I didn’t enjoy it. Like the many descriptions of vomiting in the story, reading it felt like tasting bile for hours.

I didn’t like any of the characters (except her editor back in Chicago). The small town’s inhabitants are pretty uniformly characterized as uneducated, troubled, and driven to alcoholism, addiction, and escapism. I found this whole side of the book to be fairly insulting to small towns. Every character was a negative stereotype of unsophisticated, small-minded, gossipy people. It made it hard to care when you finally find out who did it.

That was a great mystery/thriller!

I'm not used to reading this genre, and I probably would've never picked it up if it wasn't for the masterful HBO series Sharp Objects. I watched the first episode and I was SO intrigued that when I saw it was based on a book, I immediately purchased and started reading it, because I was not about to WAIT to see what happened. Ain't nobody got time for that.

It was a great read, though I feel like the ending was kind of rushed past, after the "mystery" was thought to be resolved. It was so much so that when it was revealed who the true killer was, I was a bit like "wait what now?". Up until the last 10% of the book though, it's absolutely great!

I also felt like I was being tricked and not in a good way... In retrospect, it doesn't feel like I had any chance whatsoever of solving that mystery by myself. I was purposefully mislead.

However, the narrator's voice is on point and I could feel her disgust for certain foods, actions and people. I daresay this was a synesthesic experience, because I really connected with the narration of the book.

I had already enjoyed one of Flynn's short stories, but that was my first time reading a novel.

I'm still processing how I felt about this book. Don't mistake five stars to signify enjoyment, rather it's respect: Gillian Flynn is doing something different. As far as I can tell, she's doing something different and creative and she's the best in her genre. I've never experienced anything quite like it.

Do I like it? I mean, I guess. I mean, kind of. I mean, I definitely wouldn't torture myself by rereading this book. I found it compulsive reading. Literally -- I would try to put it down, but I would keep thinking about it, about the characters, about the atmosphere, until I just had to pick it up and read more. It was the most disturbing thing I've ever read. You know how, when you're a tween/young teenager, and you and your friends tell gross out stories, because you've realized that the world can be dark and you're trying to figure out the boundaries? This book reads like this. Think of the most disturbing thing you can possibly think of, and that's this book.

On the one hand, that takes all the suspense out of the book, because you know the twist and turn to literally every mystery. On the other, there is all this tension as you read thinking: "Flynn cannot possibly be going there, right?" I was mostly relieved when Camille and Amma went home to Chicago, because I thought: thank goodness I was wrong and Adora was the killer, not Amma. And then I was a little disturbed that I came up with a more morbid ending than Flynn did. And then the final twist happened. And then the teeth went into the dollhouse, which was even more gruesome than I could have imagined

But honestly, I don't read anything just for the gross-out factor, psychological horror or the other type, so there's another reason that I stuck with this book, besides that it made me feel physically ill the way no other novel has succeeded. And that is, Flynn has something really interesting to say about female villains. Sharp Objects is an apt title -- Flynn explores the weapons that women, socialized out of traditional violence, use against themselves and each other and the deep damage that everyone involved sustains as a result. There are literal sharp objects: the knives that Camille uses to cut, girls who scratch with their nails, women and girls who bit, scissors that one of the victims once used to stab someone; and infinite metaphorical sharp objects.

Flynn had said in interviews that [b:Gone Girl|21480930|Gone Girl|Gillian Flynn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1406511734s/21480930.jpg|13306276] was the book in which she explored feminism by exploring female villains, but I didn't buy it when I read Gone Girl: Amy was too stereotypically evil and stereotypically female and I felt like it was derivative. But in Sharp Objects, Flynn clearly succeeds