Paperback, 272 pages
English language
Published July 30, 2007 by Three Rivers Press.
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 …
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.
This was Flynn's first novel & I enjoyed the slow burn of the mystery of the killer...and the circling dread as reporter Camille finds herself revisiting a traumatic past. The conclusion was rapid but satisfying.
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. …
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.
This was readable. The writing was good, the characters interesting, the story compelling.
BUT...
The whole thing kind of disintegrated in sensationalism and was so over the top it became almost laughable. It would have been much better as a character study. It would have been more enjoyable had it been realistic and hadn't just gone for the cheap thrill. The big reveal and twist at the end, OMG!!! I'm not really into that kind of thing. I'm not sure if that is this author's particular shtick; I haven't read Gone Girl and don't plan on it. But it's a waste of talent if it is.
Stopped when Camille speculated someone might be a "transvestite" hard pass.
Nothing like as good as Gone Girl. I liked the immersive and cloying nature of the town but the subject matter is very dark and unpleasant.
Where.To.Begin.
Gillian Flynn should stick to writing for Entertainment Weekly. This book sucked. I know the protagonist doesn't have to follow Webster's definition of a clean-cut "good person", but this chick (Camille Preaker) was just awful. And everything that happened was so unrealistic, I just couldn't get into it. It read like some misguided, messed up sexual fantasy that's not based on the real world.
Total waste of time.
