BACK COVER:

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.

REVIEW:

I want more Flynn. Rating between Dark Places and Gone Girl, both of which I absolutely loved, Sharp Objects is a disturbingly addictive thriller. Once again, we are introduced to a main character who we can’t entirely love for her psychological disturbances nor entirely hate for her childish vulnerability, though often the two intertwine so well that what we find annoying and revolting about her is also exactly why we sympathize for her. It has become Flynn’s trademark and area of expertise—they’re flawed and complicated, they’re human.

A page-turner until the end, it sadly concludes and wraps up in less than ten pages, one chapter and an epilogue. One minute, we are living a captivating mystery and then we are suddenly transported to a finale that failed to be grand—blink and you miss it. It’s the novel’s only downfall but it’s a big one—how ironic.