Synopsis:

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, 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 in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.

Personal Thoughts:

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

In Sharp Objects, we follow Camille Preaker who works for the fourth largest newspaper in Chicago⁠—The Daily Post⁠. She is sent to her hometown in Wind Gap, Missouri by her editor, Frank Curry, to cover a story about an alleged murder case. Camille is tasked to cover the story of Ann Nash and Natalie Keene, two very young girls whose pasts are both horrific and violent. The death of the girls have put Wind Gap into chaos as locals begin to turn on each other as the police, despite working do not have any leads on who the killer is.

This is my first ever Gillian Flynn novel. I’ve heard so many good things about Gillian Flynn, her writing-style, and her novels and I think it best to start off with her debut, Sharp Objects before reading her other novels. I think I’ve bought this book six years ago, but has only managed and found the time to read it now and, boy, do I regret not reading it sooner. This book kept me turning the pages, kept me up at night, and gave me nightmares.

There is definitely something wrong with this book and after reading it, I figured that there is something wrong with the characters, the setting, the story, the sex, and most of all, the relationships. It took me a while to finish it because it made me feel both sick and terrified, yet I couldn’t stop reading because I wanted to know how it will end.

Overall, I loved Sharp Objects despite my feelings being scattered all over the place while reading this. I am really looking forward to reading Dark Places and Gone Girl (as soon as I get a copy of them). To be honest, this book is so sick that I’ve had trouble sleeping after reading it. The images of the girls, Camille’s mother, and Amma kept haunting me. Gillian Flynn described each of her characters in a way that you will really have a full imaginative grasp of what they look like and what their personality is like.