Sharp Objects

Oh, this was not my favorite, I’m afraid. Sharp Objects is skillfully written but the story is much darker than I’d normally go for (I read it for a book club), and the heroine just struggled throughout - I never felt happy for her and I had trouble relating to her, so, in the end, it felt like witnessing the life of someone I cared for but couldn’t connect with just unravel, in truly awful ways, while I could do nothing but watch. I didn’t enjoy it. Like the many descriptions of vomiting in the story, reading it felt like tasting bile for hours.

I didn’t like any of the characters (except her editor back in Chicago). The small town’s inhabitants are pretty uniformly characterized as uneducated, troubled, and driven to alcoholism, addiction, and escapism. I found this whole side of the book to be fairly insulting to small towns. Every character was a negative stereotype of unsophisticated, small-minded, gossipy people. It made it hard to care when you finally find out who did it.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn Another good read from Gillian Flynn. This was her first novel, but it doesn't show.
 
Camille is a reporter, sent to her home town after years of self-imposed exile to cover the disappearance of a little girl just months after another girl was murdered - found strangled, teeth removed post-mortem. We quickly learn that Camille has a difficult relationship with her mother, Adora (made me think of She-Ra!), who is a strange blend of iron-willed matriarch and demure, fainting débutante. We also discover the meaning of the title fairly early on - Camille is a self-harmer struggling to curb her own destructive behaviour.
 
We follow the story from Camille's point of view as she interviews "friends" from her past about the missing girl, learning about her own family along the way - particularly Amma, the thirteen-year-old half-sister she barely knows.
 
There seems to be a common theme in Gillian Flynn's books - unlikeable protagonists. They're not perfect people, they're flawed, damaged, and entirely up-front about that in their internal dialogue even if, like Gone Girl's Nick, they attempt to hide it from other characters. Camille has low self-worth and mommy issues which, coupled with her self-harm, could easily be cliché, but the way her particular type of cutting is referred to throughout the book is interesting 
 
All in all, I enjoyed the growing sense of unease that the author evokes; it's a slow-burner with lots of dark little details that give you a little shudder every now and then. The hypersexualised kids in this book made for uncomfortable reading at times, but it's all too believable in today's world of child beauty pageants and "grown up" clothing for pre-teens.
 
There are some great plot elements here that are barely touched upon; for example, I'd like to have had more insight into Alan and Adora's relationship, but I suppose that not knowing what went on behind closed doors adds to the overall air of mystery. As it is though, Alan could have been entirely omitted from the book, and it wouldn't have made much difference.
 
Regardless, I'm moving straight on to Flynn's other novel, Dark Places. I hope I enjoy it as much!