Book Review: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Journalist Camille Preaker is sent back to her hometown, where one girl has been brutally murdered and another one is missing.

"I just think some women aren't made to be mothers. And some women aren't made to be daughters."

Dark and twisty and fucked up characters are my FAVE, and Gillian Flynn seems to be the absolute queen of creating them. Although one of the issues with having such car crashes for human beings in your stories is that you often don't have a character who you really root for or relate to. Usually I like having this sort of character in my books, but sometimes reading a book just for the sake of getting engrossed in the storyline and disentangling all the threads running throughout is all you need! Also known as… the perfect poolside read - which this was for me.

I'm a huge fan of Flynn's writing. Some of her descriptions and prose really wow-ed me. One woman she described as having "hips like antlers" in the way that the bones jutted out, and I just really liked that simile. There were a lot more instances like this where I would read a sentence or a paragraph and think "Oooh, that's GOOD!" I also loved a lot of the dark imagery that she included, it felt like quite a visual book and some of the scenes created will leave a lasting impression for sure.

Sharp Objects is full of twists and turns, a few of which I had predicted before they happened, but there were still a few that surprised me. The ending in particular! I thought I had it figured out, then it went one way and then another and I was just like WOOOAAHHH this is awesome.

Although that's not to say I had some issues. One of my major annoyances with this book was that it was extremely over sexualised at times. I am not a prude by any means, but it just felt like everything had links to sex in some way. EVERYTHING. And a lot of the time it seemed completely needless and tacked on. One event in particular… which I can't really talk about as I never include spoilers in a review, but it involved Camille's relationship with someone and it was just… completely unnecessary. In my view, anyway.

ALSO, also. I just do not buy that Amma is 13 years old! I just don't. I can completely understand that some kids are very mature and almost behave like adults at such a young age, but 13 was a bit of a stretch. Especially when you go on to watch the TV adaptation. I'm just not buying it, maybe 15 years old would be more believable? Some of Camille's opinions also rubbed me up the wrong way (that phrase would totally be made into some kind of innuendo in the book *rolls eyes*). In particular, there was one part where she discusses how women get "consumed" due to the "sheer amount of traffic" a woman's body experiences. I understand that this is merely Camille's opinion and I can't hold that against the book itself but the implication of it just grated on me.

That actually sounds like I had a lot of issues… but I still enjoyed the story a lot!! It's a page turner and it was exactly what I needed for my holiday.

4 stars.

Johann

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