Sharp Objects

I hadn't heard of Sharp Objects before the Golden Globe Awards this year. I was intrigued by the cast and decided to check it out - and I'm glad I did. The story follows a reporter on her journey back to her hometown to investigate missing girls. The story is a complete whirlwind that builds in ways I wasn't expecting, but upon reflection just made sense. I appreciate how well everything ties together.

I called this ending thanks to a TV movie I saw years ago about this...stuff. But there was a twist I didn't see coming and it was disturbing. The whole book is disturbing, but that's Gillian Flynn. Dark, twisty and tortured. But a great read that sucks you in even though it makes you uncomfortable.

3.5 starI read the book a few days ago and the reason the review is kinda late is coz whenever I thought of the book my mind went blank for some reason.I started the book thinking 254 pages, it will be a breeze, but it wasn't, the book took me so much longer than I expected, to get into but as the story went on and became more suspenseful it sped up.There are times while reading a book when I feel bored or smthg I read its reviews to make me more excited for it and almost every review for [b:Sharp Objects 18045891 Sharp Objects Gillian Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1475695315l/18045891.SY75.jpg 3801] mentioned a huge twist. So while reading the last chapter I was so disappointed I thought oh that's it?! That's the huge twist? Not much of a twist there, and then the epilogue came and I was SHOOK. Didn't expect it.Also forgot to mention this but the twist was put in such a way that you don't realize it? I'm putting it as a question because as soon as I realized the “twist” I reread that part a few times and then only got it. So well written and it just sneaks up on you.However I must say I wasn't a huge fan of our protagonist, Camille I can't put a finger on what exactly I didn't like about her but it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.Well with that being said I'm glad I finally got around to reading [b:Sharp Objects 18045891 Sharp Objects Gillian Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1475695315l/18045891.SY75.jpg 3801] and now the only book I have left to read by [a:Gillian Flynn 2383 Gillian Flynn https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1232123231p2/2383.jpg] is [b:Dark Places 5886881 Dark Places Gillian Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1354988288l/5886881.SY75.jpg 6873353].

I don't know about this. It was dark and disturbing but I liked it? Ummmm I liked the ending but the rest of it was very slow to me, and everyone was drinking and taking drugs way more than they were trying to solve this mystery. I liked the crime case and how that played out but not really much more of it.

Okay I don't know what to say really. TW self harm in this book because I didn't know that and it got so dark and was really hard to read those parts. I also felt like there was just a lot of unnecessary gruesome stuff but maybe it was necessary?? I really liked the twist it was really crazy but besides that it made me really sad tbh

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: Sharp Objects

Camille Preaker left the small town of Wind Gap, hoping never to return. Working as a newspaper reporter in Chicago, the last thing she expects is to be sent back to Wind Gap to cover a murder investigation. To write her story, Camille must face a mother who never loved her and a town with dark secrets. And when she begins to pry up those hidden bits of the past, she'll discover more than just who murdered the girls.

Sharp Objects tackles tough subjects like self-harm and substance abuse. Camille is a gritty and intense character. Being forced to relive her past brings to light cruelties that some readers may not want to read. While some small towns in fiction can be charming places, Wind Gap is everything but pleasant.

Gillian Flynn has a blunt writing style. She is unafraid of showing a person's disturbing attributes and painting them for all the world to see. At times I felt appalled at what happened in such a small town. The amount of trauma Camille endured and the outlets she provided herself are a hard pill to swallow, but not something that should be ignored. The emotions Sharp Objects pulled from me proves how skilled a writer Gillian Flynn is.

My only wish was that the ending wasn't so abrupt. After such a great story, the wrap up lasted all of a minute and everything came to a quick end. While the ending was fitting, a few more chapters to see how the characters reacted and felt would have helped ease the reader out of the story.

Sharp Objects is not for the faint of heart. While it is a shorter book, it is by no means an easy read. If you are a reader that isn't afraid to tap into the darker side of humanity, this just may be the book for you.

i have never put a content warning on a book but i believe this one needs it.

C/W: self-harm, sexualization of children, and a lot of gore

i was so uncomfortable reading all the descriptions of the LITERAL CHILDREN (6-13 year old girls) that i had to put the book down a few times to stop myself from screaming. the only descriptions of the main character's little sister is about her body and her breasts and the main character literally goes to a high school party to get drunk and do drugs with her sister.

i literally only finished this book to find out who the killer was...... and big surprise it was the first person i guessed

It was intriguing, it was dark, it was deep. The ending caught me by surprise but it wasn't unexpected. I was saddened to hear of Richard not ever contacting Camille again but, sometimes people just can't take the horrors others have gone through. Camille lost her entire family in a month. But she regained herself at the end. Great read and great book. On to the next Gillian Flynn book!

The situations described in this book are exceptional, but she breaks the image of small rural life as being ideal. Terrifying violence and dysfunction lurks beneath the surface and I have to say, she nailed it in terms of describing my small rural home town. As Flynn writes, the idealic quality of small towns is false. A question is - should people go home once they have fled extreme unhappiness? Can they go home and survive it emotionally? Going home almost undoes Camille and as the story is told the readers see from a disturbing first person angle, Camille's personal psychological problems and the extent of her damage. It was terrifying to read about, but I could not put the book down.

I feel pretty neutral about the book, I knew who the murderer was going to be and all the characters are pretty messed, it almost seemed like a contest on who could be the most fucked up person in this book.
What I really did love about the book was the atmosphere, it made me uncomfortable and I was just waiting for Camille to finally click in who done it. The book was an easy read where you can finish it in one sitting.
It just about reaches a 3 star (2.5). This book might not have blown my mind but I did like the writing style and I'm looking forward to her other works like “Gone Girl” and “Dark Places”.

A good thriller; twisty but not manipulative, I liked quite a few of the author's phrases and metaphors throughout, and a pretty good take on small town America (a little dramatic, but hey, it's a drama).

SPOILERS:

I thought the central reveals about her relationship with her mother and the younger sisters was handled really well; everything we know about this mom leads us to believe she's capable of things like this, but we don't see it coming. A good gradual reveal as the protagonist figures it out.

Sharp Objects is my first Gillian Flynn novel, but not my fist experience of her work. I watched Gone Girl and was hopelessly confused. Not by the plot, but I had read a review before seeing the film that desibed it as a feminist work of art. After seeing the film I had to conclude it was one of the greater thrillers I'd seen, but that blogpost about its feminist contributions must have been satire.

I read Sharp Objects for my bookclub, on my suggestion. I was expecting a typical detective style thriller where the big twist was that the reporter we were following was much more closely connected to the story that we expected. A lot of thrillers follow this pattern, but I really wasn't expecting the twists and flavour that Flynn put on that storyline. The plot took such a rapid increase in tension towards the end of the book that I flew through the pages. The story was captivating and horrifying; I almost didn't believe the ending once I had read it.

For this book, I would have to say that while I enjoyed the reading experience I would have preffered a longer book. I think that some of the plot elements would have benefitted from more time before the reveal, and that Flynn's writing was so gripping that I could have easily read double that pagecount. I'd like to go on to read all of her stories, especially as I hear so many great things said about her as an author.

5 stars September 20085 stars September 2018 - Rereading this 10 years after I first read it...it was intense. I don't think I realized just how creepy and unhealthy everything surrounding Wind Gap and its inhabitants was when I first read this. The children (CHILDREN!!!) have sex, drink and do drugs, and all I can think is WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?I'm not even going to talk about Camille's mother. My god. Gillian Flynn is definitely in my top favourite authors. Trigger warning for self-harm, alcohol and drug use if that's something you could be sensitive to.

It's taken me a while to write a review for this book. It's sat with me for so long and I'm still unsure of what I really feel. Honestly when I picked up this book I didn't imagine it was going to be a horror story, but it is. There is no happy ending, no monsters or make believe, just real life horror.

I was shocked with the ending, not the whodunnit aspect which I figured out quickly, but more the recovery of Camille. I expected her to reel into darkness after discovering the truth but I wanted her to come back from it. Sadly, as very well put by Flynn when woman are ill they are consumed by it.

Camille Preaker is a character I very quickly fell in love with, I wanted to see her torment end and let her have her answers in peace. Instead Camille was so desperate to find out the truth it almost killed her and the worst part is, if that was the truths I had to live with then I wouldn't want to live with them either.

And Gillian Flynn delivers once again! I have been meaning to read all her other works after having read Gone Girl years ago and loving it immensely but I have not been able to get to it until now and I can say that Gillian remains one of my favorite quality thriller writers for sure. She definitely has no problem going to the darkest recesses of human nature and does it unapologetically, which is an absolute must in my favorite thrillers. I now can't wait to read Dark Places and it will be picked up sooner rather than later even though it's buried in the back of my TBR shelf, I'll just have to dig it out.

First of all, Sharp Objects is a story about a journalist, Camille, who is fresh out of a psychiatric hospital, who gets an assignment to do a piece on an unsolved murder and a missing girl but the assignment is back in her little hometown, from which she desperately wanted to escape her whole life. What she uncovers is a lot more than she had originally bargained for and it might even affect her in ways she never could have imagined. I just love Gillian Flynn's story plots! They are brilliant and have so many layers to them which definitely makes for a very well developed story. This one is so different from her other novel that I have read before and yet it's almost just as good in my opinion, even though Gone Girl will forever hold a special place in my heart. The only reason that it's not a five star for me is because there was a brief section of the book where I felt the story dragged a little bit and I wanted to get to the good stuff but it was very short lived and then the rest of the story delivered and packed quite a punch. I mean, talk about dark and twisted tales!

Second of all, the characters are remarkable and as dark and twisted as come. The characterization was very thorough and I really got a good sense into who these messed up people are and also what drives them to act this way. I think people in general are very complicated individuals and they had so many layers to them in this book which made them so much more real and terrifying to me. It made the reveal at the end so believable because the picture we got of them all throughout the book was entirely complete and showed them for who they really were, underneath any facades or roles that they were playing in their daily lives. It wasn't a long book but the plot and the characters were extremely well developed and kept me interested to keep going.

Third of all, the writing style in this novel was a good one. It's just a tiny bit short of being my favorite straight forward style but it's unique and gets the story across beautifully, showing Gillian Flynn has definitely perfected her skill at this point. It wasn't hard to understand but took a little bit to flow as I was reading it in my own head. However, after a few pages I was hooked and the words flowed effortlessly off the page and into my mind.

In conclusion, I am glad I finally got to Gillian Flynn's other works because this was a terrific thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat and only dragged a very minimal amount. I would recommend it to to all my thriller lovers because even though it's quite short, it is packed to the brim with things that you never saw coming. Highly recommend!

I struggled a bit with this book because I found it predictable and still surprisingly disturbing. I think the characters are intriguing with so many issues unique to them. The characters make this story special. The mystery itself was rather full of tropes and, like I said, I predicted most of the surprises. Review on my channel to come.