I picked up Sharp Objects because it sounded dark and spooky and a murder mystery to boot. It delivered on all of those counts, and then some. I tore through this book in just a few hours; I just couldn’t put it down.
In Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn tells the story of Camille Preaker, a Chicago journalist called back to her hometown to write a story about a murdered young girl. Camille’s trip back to her hometown of Wind Gap, MO isn’t all wine and roses, in fact, her troubled childhood was enough to drive her to self-mutilate, carving words into her skin. Her highly dysfunctional family plays a key part of this novel, and to describe them in too much detail would take away a great deal of discovery. Camille’s mother is devoted to her youngest daughter, trapping the girl in a forever childhood. The father is barely there, bowing to the mother in all things. Camille isn’t so sure the police will solve the case; they think it’s a transient. Camille thinks it’s someone local. Who has killed to girls, and why? Will Camille find the truth?
Gillian Flynn does a great job building the suspense and slowly revealing the truth behind the mystery. The end is a double-whammy; you think you have it all figured out and then it’s something else, and then wham! It’s great and suitably disturbing all in one.
This book was so much more than I expected. I thought I would find a decent mystery with a “cutter gimmick.” Instead, I found a finely crafted mystery thriller way above the normal paperback thriller you take to the beach.
Rating: 5 Purrs for the creepiest mother since Joan Crawford
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