Sharp Objects

Sharp Objectsby Gillian Flynn

WICKED above her hipbone, GIRL across her heartWords 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 legSince 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 ankleAs 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. (goodreads.com)

I had high hopes for this book after having read and loved Gone Girl. Unfortunately I didn't think this was anywhere near the breathtaking amazingness of Flynn's third novel. Yes, Sharp Objects is twisted and pretty freaky, but in my opinion it only reaches any twistyness in the last quarter of the book.Whereas with Gone Girl I was gripped right from the first pages, it took me forever to warm up to Camille and the supposed mystery she was uncovering while trying to report on the murders of two young girls from her home town. I didn't care for Camille and her obvious drinking problem. I found no heat between her and the FBI guy. I didn't even find the mystery of how the second girl was murdered to be all that interesting for the longest time.To be honest, even with how wonderfully this story was written, I was bored. I was bored up until that last quarter of the book when things began to happen and clues began to pop up. I feel like there was too much time spent on building up the story and the story of Camille's life and a lot less creep factor over what was supposed to be creepy and twisted.Once the ball started rolling though, I was hooked. I needed to know what was going on. I'd had suspicions for a while which did come true and although I suspected one person and then thought it would be another and then was suspecting the first person again, I was committed to the end.The summary on the back of the trade paperback mislead me, it starts off with "Fresh out of rehab..." and something about bringing up a past that was forgotten made me think this was going to start with a bang. In fact you don't learn about a lot of that for a while and I was so confused and worried I was reading the wrong book, =P I wish the summary above (from goodreads, off the hard cover) was the one I'd read first because I think I would have gone into the book with a different attitude and expectation.What I do love is Gillian Flynn's style of writing. Even if I didn't ever warm up to Camille and felt impatient while waiting for the CREEPY to happen, I couldn't help but notice how well she builds her stories. And I loved - LOVED - the way she incorporated cutting into the story. All those other books I have read in the past that were solely about self-mutilation/cutting that just didn't mesh with me? Well, this one did. The whole idea of words... it was just... so loud in my head. So..emotional and raw.I'm sort of wondering what kinds of people this author grew up around though. So many crazies in her books! Of course I am going to pick up Dark Places this weekend. It's the right time of year for crazy, killing people in books, right?