Sunday Synopsis

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book was good, but I must admit it was disappointing in comparison to Gone Girl. I have not seen the HBO series based on the book, and I'm not sure I will.

Camille Preaker is a reporter who returns to her hometown to get the scoop on the disappearances and subsequent murders of two young girls. We later learn that Camille has recently been released from a psychiatric facility because she is a cutter. We also learn that her sister Marian died when Camille was about 13 years old.

When Camille returns to Wind Gap, she stays at her family's mansion with her mother Adora Crellin, step-father, and her 13 year old half sister Amma. Camille never had a good relationship with her mother who preferred her sister Marian. The relationship is tenuous with the entire family. Amma is a spoiled brat who one minute is playing with her doll house and the next minute is drinking, doing drugs, and teasing all the boys with her blossoming figure.

Camille befriends the detective who is in town from Kansas City to help the small town police department solve the crime. Together, the two of them uncover some clues, but Camille seems to uncover more reliable clues based on her interviews with the townspeople. The reader ultimately learns the reasons Marian died, the reasons Amma behaves the way she does, the reasons Adora is aloof, and who the killer is.

Several things bothered me about this book. First, it was too predictable. You will figure out what is happening long before the author plans for you to know. Second, the character of Amma never made sense. She was at once behaving like a seven-year old brat and then a sexy woman-child. It seems Ms. Flynn couldn't decide which characterization of Amma would move the plot forward more. Either way, it didn't work. Also, the characterization overall was lacking. There did not appear to be motivation for what many of the characters did. Last, she said in 254 pages what could have been a good story in half that many pages. There were pages and pages that did not add to the story or were repetitive.

I didn't love this book; it was just "okay." You might like it, but parts of it annoyed me.

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