Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - Dark Places

I wasn’t sure if I liked the book for the first third; I didn’t love the main character. She was frustratingly lazy and it really bothered me. However, as time went on I really did get wrapped up in the mystery and needed to know how it ended, and by the end I was tearing through the last few chapters! Definitely unpredictable ending which I liked, and I liked how each chapter is a different character’s perspective. If you like dark, disturbing mysteries with twists and turns, you’ll like this book.

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jillianpowell's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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readbycarina's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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meeuh's review against another edition

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4.75

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cammiem8's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

This books is very difficult for me to review. Living up to its title, Dark Places is certainly the darkest, most misanthropic, most viscerally disgusting book Gillian Flynn has written to date. It is not a pleasant read, yet her prose so expertly invokes feelings of dread and repulsion. And it is repulsive, not even the gore of the murders, but the nasty, offputting details in the everyday of the characters. Not one character is likeable. While Libby isn’t as pathetic as Camille, nor as cunningly cruel and calculating as Amy, she’s the most easily hated of Flynn’s trouble women protagonists. It’s the most seething condemnation of true crime fans (deservedly so) I’ve ever seen, and this coming from the woman who wrote the introduction to I’ll Be Gone In the Dark as a fan of the genre herself. A very interesting read, it certainly not enjoyable.

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