Sharp Objects: A Novel

Written by Gillian Flynn

Narrated by Ann Marie Lee

NOW AN HBO® LIMITED SERIES STARRING AMY ADAMS, NOMINATED FOR EIGHT EMMY AWARDS, INCLUDING OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES

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.

Praise for Sharp Objects

“Nasty, addictive reading.”—Chicago Tribune

“Skillful and disturbing.”—Washington Post

“Darkly original . . . [a] riveting tale.”—People

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 26, 2006
• ISBN: 9780739340189

Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn es la autora de Perdida, best seller número uno de The New York Times. Su guión para la adaptación cinematográfica de la novela fue nominado a los Globosde Oro. También ha publicado los best sellers La llamada del Kill Club y Heridas abiertas. Anteriormente crítica del Entertainment Weekly, en la actualidad vive en Chicago con su marido e hijos.

Reviews for Sharp Objects

[Trish · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Intriguing at best!! I was warned of the erotica and harmful notations and it still took twists I was not expecting.
Going in with an open mind is probably best, but heeding words of the triggers is a must!

[jackrabbitjam · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed reading it not having read anything of this author before and not really knowing what to expect.

[brangwinn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Flynn’s ability to twist a mystery in a different way is evident here. Camille, a newspaper reporter from Chicago returns to her small hometown in Missouri to cover the deaths of two young children. Camille is a beautiful young woman, but the mental abuse she suffered at her mother’s hands led to self-mutilation. Although I found the discovery of the girls’ murderer to be a little far-fetched, this story is so different from many mysteries set in small towns where everyone knows everyone else. Camille’s search for newspaper information is really the peeling of an onion, as each layer is revealed, painful childhood memories are uncovered as well as the brutality of girl bullies. I enjoyed the story, am glad I read it, but the ending left me feeling like there should have been more layers in the onion.

[cgalvin-774225 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I need to wash my brain. The twist wasn't as big of a twist as I expected, but I think Flynn does something amazing with her characters that I've only experienced reading Ruth Rendell: she sucks you in and makes you think that what these twisted, damaged people are doing is acceptable.

[villemezbrown · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

One of those thrillers with a drunken, unlikable protagonist in a town full of people so awful it's hard to care which of them might be person who has killed two girls in the last year. It's good enough to keep me reading along despite my general disinterest. I mean, I had no hesitation in putting the book down twelve pages from the end, but even if the ending was unsurprising, it was still as satisfying as I could hope for a dark and dreary story like this.

Simultaneous to reading this, I was also watching Under the Bridge on Hulu, and there were a lot of similarities in themes and tone, so I think I sort of overloaded, and my appreciation of both works suffered because of the overlap.

[zare_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I bought this book a long time ago and to be honest, wanted to be in the right state of mind in order to read it knowing my experiences with the other works from this author.

Now don't get me wrong - this is a good thriller, as a matter of fact, a horror story that will shake you to your core.

What makes Gilian Flynn's book true horrors is the ease with which she depicts truly demented members of society - these psychopaths are fine and dandy when in open but when left alone with their victims their true nature comes to the surface. And this is what makes these books disturbing, and this is where rather chilly realism of these books lies in. You never know what brews under-the-hood of many a man or woman or child you see around you and maybe it is good that we do not know.

I wont go into details regarding the book, especially since TV show is now airing and this is one of these books you need time to forget before re-reading because of the story punchline.

Is it disturbing - yes it is. Are the main characters inherently evil - no they are not. They are victims of their past and of their upbringing (yes, even her, and you will who "she" is as story progresses) but given right push they can get back to normal humanity.

Highly recommended but keep in mind that book is rather disturbing.

[dscox-131522 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best books ever...

I’ve read Gone Girl before, which is brilliant, but Sharp Objects is even better. Well worth the read. Keen to watch the TV show now.

[beentsy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another reviewer talked of how certain words came to them when thinking about this book. This is somehow an excellent way of reviewing this particular book. Some of the words I might pick would be wince, flinch, brow furrowing, shoulder scrunching, and shudder.

Don't let those words dissuade you from reading it though. They are said with a fair bit of respect for the author's ability to get me to feel all those things while reading her words. And now, I'm on to reading her newest book, Gone Girl Girl.

[kwskultety · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I figured out who did it halfway thru, then was wrong, but then was right again. Yup, there's twists! Well written and scary, that people like this live.Wow.

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Two preteen girls have been murdered in the all-American town of Wind Gap, Missouri. Camille, the alcoholic daughter of the town’s most affluent family, returns to her hometown as a reporter to cover the crimes. She unearths plenty of dysfunction as she probes the town’s and her family’s secrets. I thought I saw the ending coming, but I didn’t.

I appreciated the vivid writing, even if some of the details and plot twists were over-the-top.

[jbarringer-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I guessed who the killer was pretty much the moment the character was introduced, which is not usually a good sign in a murder mystery, which is essentially what this book is. However, in this case the central character, Camille, and her psychological issues take a more central focus, her urges to cut herself, and the screwy family and home life that made her who she is. The sleepy, isolated and generally uneducated world of small towns and feminist themes also take center stage, and while I knew who killed the two little girls, the murders everyone in the book wants to solve, to full story is a bitt more complicated. Camille herself is wary of feminism, but in part because she hates herself and feels like she deserves to be discounted and mistreated by the men (and women) in her life.

There are a lot of issues addressed in this book, making it a great choice for book clubs and college classes, though the subject matter is a bit too gritty and adult for many younger readers.

[rosalita_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was the debut novel by Gillian Flynn, whose most recent book Gone Girl became a genuine runaway hit last year. After reading that psychological tour de force, I wanted to go back and start at the beginning of Flynn's bibliography to see how her writing progressed to that point of near-ubiquitous praise.

Sharp Objects has lots of familiar elements for readers of Gone Girl. The familial relationships are complicated, to say the least, and it can be a struggle to find a character who doesn't make one grit one's teeth in frustration. At the same time, there's an element of unreality, for lack of a better word, to the narrative that betrays its first-novel status.

The novel opens with Camille Preaker, a reporter for a Chicago newspaper, being sent back to her hometown in southern Missouri to dig into a story about two missing and murdered little girls. Camille is not thrilled to be going back to a place she left as soon as she could, and even less thrilled to be staying with her mother, stepfather, and half sister as she roams around town, trying to get people to talk to her as a reporter and not as the girl they remember. As Flynn reveals more and more about Camille's past, we learn that she has good reason for her discomfort in this place that is as southern Gothic as any town I've read about recently.

Some readers may be put off, as they were in Gone Girl, that it is sometimes difficult to find a sympathetic character in the book. Additionally, the central conceit that is meant to convey Camille's mental fragility seemed so unlikely and unbelievable that I had a hard time taking it seriously. And the character of Camille's editor back in Chicago veered from a hard-nosed Lou Grant type to a doting father figure so abruptly that I wondered for a minute if I had accidentally conflated two separate characters in my mind. It's testament to Flynn's skill as a writer that even as I was rolling my eyes, I was eagerly reading on to find out what happened next.

If your idea of a good book is one that presents at least one character who is easy to like or root for, you may want to give Sharp Objects a pass. On the other hand, if you believe that fractured families put the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional', this book may be for you.

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gillian Flynn’s first novel, Sharp Objects, may not be quite as twisty as her wildly-popular Gone Girl, but it’s definitely full of nasty surprises, perverted motives, and outright evil. Perceptive readers will pick up on part of the secret fairly quickly; others will come, sooner or later, to the same conclusion at which protagonist Camille Preaker reluctantly arrives: You’re crazy to think what you’re thinking. You’re crazy not to think it.

Preaker, a somewhat less than brilliant reporter on a second-class Chicago daily, is sent to her suitably parochial Missouri hometown where the murder of two young girls in less than nine months has townspeople nervous and law enforcement in over their heads. Preaker’s editor sees an overlooked story that just might vault his struggling paper into prominence, and thinks the young woman’s local connections will help her dig out the details of the investigation. What the editor doesn’t understand, and what Preaker is too emotionally fragile to tell him, is that she has been estranged from her family for years, and that being plunged back into the emotional morass of a town where everyone knows – or thinks they know – everyone else’s business, is a living nightmare for her.

Flynn has drawn some of the nastiest fictional characters ever to slither around a suspense novel, including a quartet of middle-school girls teetering between sexual promiscuity and mean-girl bullying, a mother figure straight out of hell, and a protagonist with a wheelbarrow full of kinks – sexual and otherwise. It’s a horror scenario the reader can barely stand to watch, yet barely manage to put down.

[dairyqueen84 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found such horror hard to believe.

[sublunarie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is definitely an instance where I believe seeing the series first hampered my experience of reading the book. Don't get me wrong, the book is very good. But all I truly ended up doing was replaying the series in my head, visually. This process disconnected me from the story the way I don't like to be when I'm reading.

If you're trying to figure out if you should read the book first, the answer is YES.

[tsmom1219 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well written, but too disturbing for my tastes.

[doryfish-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Oh my God, this book is just so sick. Every single thing about it is disturbing: fucked-up adults, fucked-up children, fucked-up sex, fucked-up small-town setting. As I finished each chapter I would think to myself, "Things can't possibly get any worse." Oh, but they can. Gillian Flynn shows you they totally can.

[lee.gabel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Whew. This book put the "fun" in dysfunctional family. Plus it offered a compelling and scary depiction of tweens and teens. I'm sure there are teens out there that resemble those in this book, and it's scary.

[akbouterse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My first Gillian Flynn book and I really liked it! I had seen the Gone Girl movie and my mom watched the miniseries for this book. I was sometimes in the room while she was watching so because of that, I did know some very big spoilers going in.
I knew that Amma had the teeth in the dollhouse, I did not know about the munchausen by proxy stuff with the mom. However, this didn't really effect my enjoyment that much because so much of this book is about character work and what a town and a family can do to a person and the literal and figurative marks that are left on a person. This is a pretty short book but it packs a punch in that short time. I thought Flynn did an excellent job writing complex characters that you can never really understand without making that incredibly frustrating. I really loved reading about Camille. She is a complex, very frustrating character but I liked the way she navigated the complicated dynamics around her. The ending was slightly sped up compared to the rest of the book. This book isn't actually really focused in solving the crime so when that part comes up it goes by pretty fast. I really enjoyed the very last few pages of this book. That ending really made the book for me.

I'm definitely interested in reading more by Flynn after this one. I really enjoyed her writing style. It was a lot slower than other thrillers which made me really sit with the story. I know a lot of people have already read this but I would recommend this as a good October read for those who haven't picked this up yet.

[personajedeunlibro · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

At first, this story was so gripping, plus I love reading about serial killers. However, I felt that the book placed too much emphasis on aspects of the characters' lives that seemed a bit bland to me; there was a lot of background that didn't engage my interest. Too much filler.
On the other hand, it was predictable in many ways, and regarding the ending, although I didn't see it coming, it seemed lacking in logical arguments, and overall, it felt a bit bizarre and didn't fully convince me.
The truth is, I expected much more, and it felt like the typical Netflix series about drugs, sex, and a strange murder.
I felt like I was reading a story of gossip that was happening in the town with a crime that really wasn't all that believable in how it was carried out. (Translated from Spanish)

[VictoriaRG · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

First work by Gillian Flynn. I liked it more than the one that follows (Dark Places). But for me, it doesn't surpass Gone Girl, a novel that I devoured and impacted me a lot. Nevertheless, I recommend this work because it is enjoyable... twistedly enjoyable. (Translated from Spanish)

[orphica · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I feel like Lady Gaga saying "talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never-the-same, totally unique, completely-not-ever-been-done-before" after finishing this book. Gillian Flynn, a true queen. (Translated from Spanish)

[Alexreads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's an entertaining thriller that keeps you reading, eager to find out what will happen next, and although it's not their best work, it's definitely worth it. (Translated from Spanish)

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn terrifying as this story felt like it could actually have happened. This is an extreme view of mother/daughter relationships, and in this case the psychopathic mother was able to damage three daughters, all in different ways but each equally tragic. The story is narrated by Camille who, upon the death of her sister, started cutting herself at 13. Her cutting developed into the writing of significant words all over her body. She is now in her early thirties, a newspaper reporter who has been sent back to her hometown to write about an a couple of gruesome murders that have two young girls as victims.

As Camille gathers information about the murders, the victims and their families, she also is becoming reacquainted with her own dysfunctional family and becoming more and more concerned about her younger step-sister, Amma. Although thirteen year old Amma is very precocious and can be very mean to others, Camille is afraid that her mother is making Amma and herself ill in order to nurse them while appearing to others to be a loving and concerned mother. As one nasty revelation after another is revealed, Camille believes she not only knows who the murderer is, she also knows why these particular young girls were targeted.

Sharp Objects was a spell-binding read, a whodunit that allows the reader to work out the details and fill in the missing pieces as the action mounts. There are moments of back-stabbing rage, cloying and false affections and out and out viciousness. This book is also a dark and revealing look at how mothers don’t always belong on a pedestal and small towns aren’t always safe places to raise a family.

[moukayedr · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I usually like this type of book as it deals with a plainly troubled protagonist. Camille Preaker is a journalist at a small newspaper in Chicago. She is assigned to write a story about two murders of pre-teen girls in her hometown Wind Gap, Missouri.

In the process of her journalistic investigation she is forced to come to terms with the past she thought she left behind. Her cold mother Adora, her half sister Amma, and the ghost of her dead half-sister Marian. Her dysfunctional home life, was a source of many of her problems, which quickly unfold in the telling of the story. The dysfunctional town is also revealed in the process of investigating the murders.

It is a page turner with excellent build-up of tension, as the whole evil of the crimes unfolds. The resolution when it comes will make the reader gasp with disbelief. Is it really possible to have so much evil concentrated in one place? or is it really the fault of eating too much medicated and hormone-grown hog, from the farm that employs half the city? Perhaps the author wants to make a subtle call for vegetarianism. Good fun book if you like the twisted and weird.

[Vani8 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's an excellent thriller. I love its characters since I met them in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects based on this book. I think that's its greatest strength: its protagonist with her issues perfectly explained by her family, the town, and the situations she experienced and faces every moment while investigating a couple of inexplicable murders in that lost corner of the world. (Translated from Spanish)

[karenj07 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A journalist is sent to her hometown to report on the cases of murders of girls that have been occurring. Despite the bad memories the place has left her, she decides to stay to investigate and obtain a good report... I liked it a lot; it was an addictive read, I couldn’t stop until I finished it, and while I enjoyed it, I believe it should have had a better ending, not for the plot but for the protagonist. (Translated from Spanish)

[Cris ¿Qué libro leo? · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fascinating story about the ghosts of the past. I love the way the writer, Gillian Flynn, immerses you in her suspense stories; she manages to captivate you in the narrative and makes you feel the frustration and pain of her characters. With open wounds, she will make you distrust even your own shadow until she surprises you with her shocking ending. (Translated from Spanish)

[Anamaria14 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very good, but predictable. (Translated from Spanish)

[karatenursemary · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Started the book and read about 3/4 of it. Then wasn't interested in finishing it. Found it on my Kindle and wrapped it up. Most of the characters struck me as selfish, weak, and sometimes evil. I really did not enjoy this one.