Gillian Flynn

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.
--back cover

A Novel

Sharp Objects

AN HBO LIMITED SERIES STARRING AMY ADAMS FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GONE GIRL 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.

sariya

"I am learning to be cared for. I am learning to be parented. I'm returning to my childhood, the scene of the crime."

"A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort."

"Hurt as a form of flirtation. Pain as intimacy, like my mother jabbing her tweezers into my wounds."

"The killer was a woman who resented strength in females, who saw it as vulgar. She tried to mother the little girls, to dominate them, to turn them into her own vision. When they rejected that, struggled against that, the killer flew into an outrage. The girls had to die. Strangling is the very definition of dominance. Slow-motion murder."

"I didn't need to hide from someone courting oblivion as ardently as I was."

"Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed."

"It was a town that bred complacency through cable TV and a convenience store. Those who remained here were still just as segregated as before... They were women not strong enough or smart enough to leave. Women without imagination. So they stayed in Wind Gap and played their teenage lives on an endless loop."

"I never mind throwing up. When I'd get sick as a child, I remember my mother holding my hair back, her voice soothing: Get all that bad stuff out, sweetheart. Don't stop till it's all out. Turns out I like that retching and weakness and spit."

"I was never really on my side in any argument. I liked the Old Testament spitefulness of the phrase got what she deserved. Sometimes women do."

"People got such a charge from seeing their names in print. Proof of existence. I could picture a squabble of ghosts ripping through piles of New. Pointing at a name on the page. See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was."

"I wanted to slice barren into my skin. That's how I'd stay, my insides unused. Empty and pristine. I pictured my pelvis split open, to reveal a tidy hollow, like the nest of a vanished animal."

"I like checking days off a calendar—151 days crossed and nothing truly horrible has happened. 152 and the world isn't ruined. 153 and I haven't destroyed anyone. 154 and no one really hates me. Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand."

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

"I've always been partial to the image of liquor as lubrication—a layer of protection from all the sharp thoughts in your head."

"...in truth I think she's always had more problems with children than she'd ever admit. I think, in fact, she hates them. There's a jealousy, a resentfulness that I can feel even now, in my memory. At one point, she probably liked the idea of a daughter. When she was a girl, I bet she daydreamed of being a mother, of coddling, of licking her child like a milk-swelled cat. She has that voraciousness about children. She swoops in on them."

"I always feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me. She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. She tended to me. She administrated me."

"I'm here, I said, and it felt shockingly comforting, those words. When I'm panicked, I say them aloud to myself. I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. I feel like a warm gust of wind could exhale my way and I'd be disappeared forever, not even a sliver of fingernail left behind. On some days, I find this thought calming; on others it chills me."

"I felt no particular allegiance to the town. This was the place my sister died, the place I started cutting myself. A town so suffocating and small, you tripped over people you hated every day. People who knew things about you. It's the kind of place that leaves a mark."

"I was lovely to look at, as long as I was fully clothed. Had things turned out differently, I might have abused myself with a series of heart-wrenched lovers. I might have dallied with brilliant men. I might have married."

"... children digest terror differently. The boy saw a horror, and that horror became the wicked witch of fairy tales, the cruel snow queen."

"Every tragedy that happens in the world happens to my mother, and this more than anything about her turns my stomach. She worries over people she’s never met who have a spell of bad chance. She cries over news from across the globe. It’s all too much for her, the cruelty of human beings."

"'I wish I'd be murdered... Then I'd never have to worry again. When you die, you become perfect. I'd be like Princess Diana."

"They always call depression the blues, but I would have been happy to waken to a periwinkle outlook. Depression to me is urine yellow. Washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss."

"For those who need a name, there’s a gift basket of medical terms. All I know is that the cutting made me feel safe. It was proof. Thoughts and words, captured where I could see them and track them. The truth, stinging, on my skin, in a freakish shorthand. Tell me you’re going to the doctor, and I’ll want to cut worrisome on my arm. Say you’ve fallen in love and I buzz the outlines of tragic over my breast. I hadn’t necessarily wanted to be cured. But I was out of places to write, slicing myself between my toes—bad, cry—like a junkie looking for one last vein. Vanish did it for me. I’d saved the neck, such a nice prime spot, for one final good cutting. Then I turned myself in."

the feminine rage in this novel is electric. for fans of “we have always lived in a castle,” “the yellow wallpaper,” and lizzie borden - this novel exemplifies the pain and power of being a woman. will come back for a reread soon!

Nina

Cate

did not see that twist coming... like wowww, this was absolutely crazy, loved it! the plot seems predictable but the more you read it the more interesting it gets. i love how complex camille is as a character and so were her relationships with adora and amma throughout it. 

gillian's writing is stellar, she narrates the atmosphere so well and gives descriptions of certain things in such a nasty way but it doesn't make you give up on the book, truly impressive for a debut novel! would recommend this to anyone.

marceline

did not see that twist coming... like wowww, this was absolutely crazy, loved it! the plot seems predictable but the more you read it the more interesting it gets. i love how complex camille is as a character and so were her relationships with adora and amma throughout it. 

gillian's writing is stellar, she narrates the atmosphere so well and gives descriptions of certain things in such a nasty way but it doesn't make you give up on the book, truly impressive for a debut novel! would recommend this to anyone.

It has everything that I love about a suspense book. The main character is incredible and complex, and her being the narrator gives a twist to a “typical” story about girls disappearing, making it new and fascinating for me. The author narrates the atmosphere of a small American town so well that I felt like I was there. The best of all, the ending. Really wasn’t expecting that plot twist. 

Would recommend to anyone who’s looking for a book that keeps you hook throughout begging to end.

Luis Letelier

10/10

It has everything that I love about a suspense book. The main character is incredible and complex, and her being the narrator gives a twist to a “typical” story about girls disappearing, making it new and fascinating for me. The author narrates the atmosphere of a small American town so well that I felt like I was there. The best of all, the ending. Really wasn’t expecting that plot twist. 

Would recommend to anyone who’s looking for a book that keeps you hook throughout begging to end.

From the author of the No.1 bestseller and international phenomenon GONE GIRL. Now a major HBO/SKY ATLANTIC TV series starring Amy Adams, with the director of BIG LITTLE LIES, Jean-Marc Vallee. When two girls are abducted and killed in Missouri, journalist Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to report on the crimes. Long-haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her mother for years, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and the half-sister she barely knows - a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town. As Camille works to uncover the truth about these violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims - a bit too strongly. Clues keep leading to dead ends, forcing Camille to unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past to get at the story. Dogged by her own demons, Camille will have to confront what happened to her years before if she wants to survive this homecoming.

A major HBO & Sky Atlantic Limited Series starring Amy Adams, from the director of BIG LITTLE LIES, Jean-Marc Vallée

What do you mean this MASTERPIECE is a debut novel? Maybe it hits me too close to home... But I can't even describe what it made me feel.

LIMEKI 

“A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.” 

HOW DID I NOT SEE IT COMING. What a crazy book. And her debut novel at that!! 

Lindy

“A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.” 

HOW DID I NOT SEE IT COMING. What a crazy book. And her debut novel at that!! 

Amina

this is the book that got me into thrillers when I was in high school. I arguably think it's her best work (yes, even more than gone girl)

anna g

excellent excellent holds up on the third go round

Lola

This was a rough read, this story is descriptively gruesome and macabre, part of me feels it should almost come with a warning. 
It took me almost 30% of the way in before i really felt "hooked" by the story and characters, but once hooked i couldn't put it down until i finished it.

Patrick Book

I liked it more than I expected. Why can’t ladies just be nice to each other??

radhika dhawan

Pratik M

A dark and at times creepy tale of small-town America. A sordid homecoming for the protagonist who isn’t exactly on the up & up. No major mystery but with overly matured children and their antics is enough to worry you.

armoni mayes

i truly was shook at the twist in this book. one of my all time favorite thrillers now

Anjorin Molayo 

this book was so cringey. i guess that was what the author was aiming at. giving it 1 star is me been generous. i’m surprised i actually finished the book.

Some scars never heal . . . An addictive thriller from the author of the mega bestseller GONE GIRL. When two girls are abducted and killed in Missouri, journalist Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to report on the crimes. Long-haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her mother for years, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and the half-sister she barely knows - a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town. As Camille works to uncover the truth about these violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims - a bit too strongly. Clues keep leading to dead ends, forcing Camille to unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past to get at the story. Dogged by her own demons, Camille will have to confront what happened to her years before if she wants to survive this homecoming.

ellie moriarty

a fucked up mother-daughter relationship? 5 stars.

arwen

Dhara Trivedi

Fenix Voliton 

oh my god. motherhood?!… nightmares?!…

a novel

Sharp objects

Caroline

“The face you give the world, tells the world how to treat you.”

Sharp Objects is my first read of the year 2020 and the first book I have read by author Gillian Flynn. First let me start with the star ratings I have given this book. All through this book I was stuck between a 1 or a 2 star rating but I kind of ended up giving it a 3 star rating only because of the climax. I must say the author really took me by surprise with such an unpredictable end.

On the other hand I thought the whole story was blown out of proportion and was all over the place or should i say was all over the town. Every character in the book has a very dark, shadowy, sad, depressing past which they carry with them throughout the whole story, be it Camilla Precker, her mother Adora or the thirteen year half sister who does not quite behave her age. According to me the author had roped in way too many characters, which have little or no contribution to the story except for the juicy gossips they provided around town. 

Honestly,halfway through the book I found it difficult to put a finger on as to which direction the story was really headed. was it the story of the main protagonist Camilla Precker and the shadowy relationship with her mother and her half sister or story of the investigation into the case of the girls how had been murdered and how all this would end up being related to Camilla? Even when the story got interesting I found that the author had put pages after pages describing people or the town of wind gap due to which as a reader i was losing interest and was unable to keep focus . I felt the book was highly descriptive. 

For me personally the book only got interesting in the last four five chapters. All I can say is that i had my fingers crossed hoping for a unpredictable end, which according to me the author lived up too.

Gillian Flynn is a fantastic author. I think this book was expertly executed with the many reveals as well as the complexity of the characters. 

Emma Miller

Bella Baxter

Interesting read. Bit slow up until 3/4 in. Then the ending was mad quick.

Aparna

The book was dark and sad when the words that present emotions to us of long-lasting damage inflicted to people they ought to and perhaps love. It's heart wrenching but a good storyline.

Sharp Objects A Novel

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