Fans of Gillian Flynn's popular thriller, "Gone Girl" might have seen "Sharp Objects" on the shelf and wanted to give it a read. Be warned--deeper, darker mysteries await. Less psychological head game than "Gone Girl", and more macabre and disturbing, "Sharp Objects" is not for the prudish or righteous.
Flawed characters abound, and ugly lifestyles loom large, not sparing the heroine, a reporter returning to her small, insular hometown to investigate some child murders. Flynn manages to build characters that seem both real and impossibly imaginary, characters whose foibles and imperfections become normal and acceptable.... a world where if everyone is crazy, then no one is.
Ugly, violent, and warped are all fitting terms for a book where the characters themselves are, metaphorically-speaking, the "sharp objects" in question. Reading the book is kind of like witnessing a terrible accident. You want to look away, but you are compelled to gaze on in horror as circumstances unfold.
Though I don't know if I call myself a fan of Flynn's writing, I can certainly say she bewitches readers with her words, drawing unsuspecting souls into a world where everything is askew and the way out becomes muddy and hidden. Only when she is done with you, does Flynn spit you out, sullied and shaken, yet oddly ready to return for more.
~Karina
She's also funny as hell in places.
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