Sharp Objects
Ratings646
Average rating3.8
“sometimes when you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them.”
i liked this ending better than dark places, mostly because i halfway guessed the ending for that one lmfao, i also think i just like this storyline better
Ugh..and then bleh.
Summary: A reporter returns to her small home town in Missouri, to investigate the murder of 2 young girls. She realizes her family and old friends were not who she thought they were.
It's ugly. Uncomfortable. Often unnecessarily so. Just for the sake of it.
There is barely a plot. All you need for a story is in the first 2 and last 2 chapters. Everything in the middle is just filler. Dark filler. Everything is wrong. Everybody is awful. It's like something out of X files. Some radiation or something, made a whole town develop a mean streak. A town high on violence.
I don't think it's a badly written book (although there wasn't anything spectacular about the writing). It just wasn't for me. There is not much of a mystery to it, like in Gone Girl. Either you forsee the ending, or even if you don't, you can't really care when you do.
The book is about the people in it. The plot, probably was just a side-effect. And that's absolutely well done. If you like to read about evil deeds and evil people and why they do them, you might enjoy this.
Not feel good. Not one bit. Opposite opposite.
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.
Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐
I liked the story. I'm ambivalent about the ending, but I don't hate it. I really didn't like the characters, though. The problems the people in this book have are too extreme for me to relate to any of them. Also, the vulgarity in this book felt very forced to me. Maybe Flynn wanted to get some point across, but to me it just seemed unnatural.
Still, I didn't feel like my time was wasted with this book, I just hoped for something else.
So many aspects of this book made me super uncomfortable. Please search up trigger warnings
From one scene to the next, I was completely engrossed. It throws you headfirst into the eerie details of a town gone wrong. Where rumors and horror stories are swept under the carpet. It's hard to imagine where it will end up. And just when you think all the pity has been sucked out of your soul, the epilogue hits.
Я никогда не читаю отзывы к книгам перед тем, как их читать.
Не читаю потому, что убеждалась не раз, что о вкусах не спорят, зато можно отлично испортить себе предвкушение...
Тут как раз что-то такое и произошло. Я прочитала отзыв (случайно!) о том, что главная героиня так себе, что история ни о чем и вообще фу-фу-фу, так что от этой книги я не ожидала ничего хорошего.
Первые 50 страниц даже хотела бросить эту историю, но.. хорошо, что не бросила и справилась с предубеждением!
Если я не поставила этой книге 5 звезд - так это потому что мне ее было мало. Мало событий, мало саспенса, но то, что есть - отличное. И героиня, несмотря на свою противоречивость, очевидно, хороший человек. И характеры выписаны хорошо, хотя общее впечатление от книги, как от спектакля. Ощущение, что все, выстроенное внутри ее - декорации, а люди актеры, как в “Шоу Трумана”. Эта картинность помогает не воспринимать происходящие ужасы в книге как реальность: они видятся иллюзией, мороком, неправдой, даже, может, сном. В этом - талант Гиллиан Флинн, и несмотря на общую депрессивность повествования, книга не тяжелая.
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].
An investigative journalist with a troubled past and self-destructive tendencies goes back to her hometown to investigate a murder. Gillian Flynn writes masterfully to the point where you can almost smell the vodka on the main characters' breathe and see the horrific scene of finding the little girl with her nails painted and teeth pulled out. Blending some of my favorite troupes, the destructive main character, murder mystery, family trauma, and an idyllic town where everything isn't as perfect as it seems.
Camille Breaker goes to her hometown of Wind Gap to write a story about a murdered little girl with another girl missing. However, it is not only the murdered and the missing that she uncovers, instead, she has to face her family demons with her southern charm mother, wild stepsister, and the looming memory of her sister who passed away. Through the past mixed with the present, she helps the FBI agent who is investigating the case in exchange for information on Wind Gaps vivid characters to help close the case. All of the evidence points to a young man in the town and the wild town gossip has everyone talking about who did it over their amaretto sours and gin martinis. The deeper she investigates the deeper she uncovers the past of the town and the memories of her family that she has buried away. Overall, I read this book in about a day and a half, and now I am searching high and low for more Gillian Flynn and her masterful writing. I highly recommend this book and you will not see the ending coming.
Memorable Quote: “I am a cutter, you see. Also, a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It's covered with words - cook, cupcake, kitty, curls - as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: babydoll. Pull on a sweater and, in a flash of my wrist: harmful.”
Great read. Was thrilling and great descriptive writing by Flynn, although a little predictable.
It was super dark and interesting to read. I definitely couldn't put it down at some parts! But I'm a bit disappointed in the ending because I guessed it from the beginning.
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!
Am vrut sa revad mini-seria de ceva timp, asa ca m-am gandit sa vad cum este materialul sursa... Gillian Flynn nu a dezamagit!
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.
The entire time I was reading I just wanted to get to the end. I was solely interested in who the killer was and the other details seemed to drag. The characters were so unlikable, even the narrator; I just wanted some redeeming qualities. The ending was good tho.
Had to go back and downgrade it to a 1 star cause after thinking about it, the writing seemed to romanticize cutting and thinking back on the story made me nauseous and not in a good murder mystery way.
I've never read a book like this before.
It is the most uncomfortable book I've ever read. It leaves you feeling sticky and itchy and makes you want to tear the pages out.
I think it takes great skill to write a book this messed up. So I can't help but think highly of it.
also, I really liked the ending. That's usually what lets me down but this was tied together sufficiently well.
I picked up the book because I really loved the series. Both are kinda different but the same, different experiences though.
What I love in Flynn's books, and this one in particular, is that it's a study of small town politics, female dynamics, and the psychology of an abusive home. Even though most thrillers go with the easy “the killer was crazy!”, in this book you have an actual in depth research of mental illness and abuse, while the crimes and investigations become the background of the story.
predicted everything about this. disappointed, but still read the whole thing whilst very engrossed
This was a change of pace from what I've been reading. Dark and intense. There are some places I thought dragged on a bit, but overall the pace was good.
Camille is an interesting character. Tortured by the loss of her sister and lack of love and emotion from her mother, she turns to torturing herself. It was hard to read some parts of her story.
Amma is a whirlwind. She certainly knows how to play both sides and get what she wants with cruelty and honey
One thing that you might not glean from the blurb is that some of the content might cause discomfort for some readers. Here's a big ole CW for you: sex, rape, self-harm, drug and alcohol misuse, child abuse/murder, and teeth.Beyond that, this is a fairly standard thriller. Admittedly not told from the perspective of the police, instead from Camille the journalist, but it's still predictable in terms of ‘Whodunnit' part of the plot. The clues Flynn leaves are big and obvious and I found myself wanting to reach in and shake Camille for being so blind to it all on several occasions. Perhaps that is the point? To show how we do not wish to believe the worst in the people we know, no matter how much evidence there is.Camille is a walking litany of self-harm (sex, drugs, alcohol, sharp objects...), which I found a little difficult to read at times as she tries to defend her decisions as rational. This is a commonality I found with [b:The Grownup 26025580 The Grownup (Rogues, #2) Gillian Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1441679582l/26025580.SY75.jpg 45948939], both protagonists are very sexual and use sex as a way to get what they want (as is one of the key supporting characters in Sharp Objects) however there is no criticism of this and how a society puts women in a position like that has something deeply wrong with it. Because of this, I can't quite tell if Flynn is trying to be a pro-sex feminist, reclaiming it for women to wield or whether she's playing into patriarchal rhetoric.Given some of the issues I had with the book and the predictable perpetrator I don't feel I can give this more than 3 stars. Entertaining enough but has it's problems.