Thursday, July 26, 2012

Book Review: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Title: Sharp Objects
Author: Gillian Flynn
Enjoyment Rating: **** (probably more of 3 1/2)
Source: Kindle for iPad
Books I've read this year: 88

Camille Preaker is trying to make it as a journalist in Chicago when her boss sends her back to her Missouri hometown to write about a string of murders. Camille is reluctant to go home, and even more reluctant to face her mother, Adora, whose enormous pig farm employs most of the small town. Camille is a delicate, profoundly damaged alcoholic, in recovery from cutting. She has words written all over her body, in any spot that could conceivably be hidden by clothing, and it seems that going home to Wind Gap might just put her over the edge, since she not only has to confront Adora and her past, but also her younger half-sister and the ghost of her other sister, the perfect Marian.

As a mystery, the story didn't really work for me. Maybe I already knew enough about the dark and devious ways that Flynn's mind works, but I had the murderer pegged almost immediately after Camille hit Wind Gap. That should have diminished my enjoyment of the novel, but it really didn't. Just like Flynn's Amy in Gone Girl captured my attention with her deviousness, Camille's damaged self kept me reading. I often thought she acted in reckless, self-destructive ways, but Flynn kept me rooting for her.

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