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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
dark
tense
fast-paced
this book is so fucked 🤣😂
dark
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-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
Excellently written, but I can’t read about self-harm.
This is a re-read for me, but I still love this book. I'm a big fan of anything Gillian Flynn creates, in all honesty. Gone Girl was one of my favorite books; Dark Places was also incredible, but something about Sharp Objects hits differently. Camille is so damaged and so relatable, and she makes me so sad. Amma is such an interesting little demon of a child. And Adora is also fascinating. I love Gillian's prose and how she doesn't shy away from complex subjects; the language she uses to describe them is unflinching. Like that slaughterhouse scene is going to haunt my dreams.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4/5
This review contains discussion of violence, child abuse, and sexual violence.
This novel is the first of Gillian Flynn's novels that I have read, and it has been a reading experience that has certainly left its mark on me. This is a novel that licks its thumb and pushes it deep into a wound. I felt uncomfortable while reading this book. I felt this book get under my skin. Camille Preaker is a character who walks through the world in a repressed, almost detached way, viewing the violence around her almost as an itch to scratch, which turns her into a character who you can both sympathise with, and feel incredibly frustrated with.
The characters in this book speak with careful, biting words. No dialogue is padded or unnecessary, and each character’s way of speaking – the words, manner, or time they choose to speak – gives them a unique characterization. I can close my eyes and feel the distinct personhood.
This book covers some intriguing concepts of femininity and motherhood, childhood trauma, and sexual violence – all with a punch. The only place where this book faltered for me was towards the end, which ran a little too fast and tripped over its own feet.
CHILDHOOD AND UNFURLING WOMANHOOD
While some thrillers or mysteries can be technically complex yet stylistically and thematically one-dimensional, I felt that this book stood apart as having a grotesque, thoughtful underbelly. This story does not contain simple or cheap plot twists for the sake of grabbing your attention. It meanders. It ponders.
You gain small understandings as to why Camille is the way she is – the picture built of her childhood is painted slowly over the chapters. A recollection of her mother biting her as a child. The way she would know when her mother was stressed, because she would find tiny feathery piles of plucked eyelashes. Her childhood trauma, and its connection to the woman she becomes, is visceral and clear. You come to understand the frigid way that affection was dealt out in Camille’s home, and how the laborious ‘act’ of being a woman was more important to her mother than being herself.
‘The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you, my mother used to say.’ (p.290.)
This idea of how people, particularly women, are treated, leads into a theme that returns again and again in this book: deservedness. Camille has taken on this idea to her core. She says: ‘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.’ (p.222.)
Women are abused, demeaned, treated as objects. Camille often feels that they deserve this, that she deserves this. ‘A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort’, Camille says (p.320). Camille carves words into her skin because she deserves to take them on physically. This can mean words she is called out of cruelty, words she wants but will never obtain, words that make her feel guilt or shame. She calls this cutting both ‘proof’ and ‘truth’ (p.79); it is a process through which she self regulates and punishes herself all at once. It is, perhaps, an over the top and graphic portrayal of self harm, but it feels in place in a novel that is about such a morally diseased town, and morally diseased characters.
You can trace this behaviour back to the way her mother only gave her attention on her terms, the way Camille was treated throughout her adolescence by boys, the way the heavy conservatism of the town only rewards women who take on demure, motherly roles. When women do not fit into this role of being objects, they turn perverse, mean, sharp. ‘Sharp objects’ as a title seems less to describe the physical tools that are used for violence in this book. Rather, it describes the stripped down, objectified women who become cruel, hollow husks of themselves.
We want to love Amma, the sister who has grown up too quickly and uses cruelty as a way to keep her own soft core safe. Camille wants to love Amma. We want to save her, to fix her of all the wrongs that have already changed and warped her. We want to see her as a victim, rather than as an aggressor, and Camille spends much of this book struggling with this very idea. Can Amma become a better version of herself, or is she inherently wrong inside? Which women are sick due to the things that have happened to them, and which women are deeply irredeemable? This book will not give you the answers to these questions, but the process of asking them kept me thinking long after I put the book down.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE
This book is not cruel without reason, and while it contains no pointing of fingers at the causes of problems, no waxing poetic about its own themes, this novel is a constant hum of meaning.
The narrative is stained with the theme and effects of sexual violence, particularly towards women and girls. Sexual violence in this novel is not a hidden boogeyman, or something that emerges as a surprise or as a twist to the reader. It is an evident constant in the town of Wind Gap. It does not hide its face. It is normalized, not just by the standards of the town, but seemingly by the main character, Camille, herself.
In chapter eight, while explaining to Detective Richard Willis a series of sexual assaults directed towards girls at her high school growing up, Camille asks whether the events ‘count’ as rape, and becomes angry towards Richard for being ‘sexist’ by giving women special treatment and assuming that women don’t take part in or have any choice in this violence. It is a complex issue, one that is certainly not black and white, but Camille definitely displays a deeply rooted belief that the violent things that have happened to her are somehow her fault – for not being good enough, for not making different choices, for wanting to be punished.
While the detective may act as the rational outsider voice when discussing the sexual violence prevalent in the town – condemning it, and even expressing revulsion at Camille’s lack of criticism towards these incidents – we see that he is no more willing to come into contact with it and challenge it than any of the other men in Wind Gap. Furthermore, as the blossoming romance between Camille and the detective progresses, the sexual relationship between the two treads ever so lightly towards power-based sexual roles.
We want in the story for there to be a ‘good one’, an outsider to all this depravity that has become so commonplace that it is almost a rite of passage for young women. But that story – where we are allowed to crave justice and a change to the status quo – is not this story. The detective can bear to hear about, perhaps even challenge the idea of sexual violence, but witnessing the physical scarring of it on Camille’s body is too much. It becomes too real, too grotesque. He cannot separate himself from it, now that he has touched her, too.
TO END
For such a punchy book that crawled with a pace just fast enough to be impactful, and slow enough to keep you wondering and uncomfortable, the final chapter and epilogue of this book were fast to the point that it lost the full weight of potential impact.
Without revealing too much, speeding through a new setting, a developing relationship, intriguing new dynamics, and an ultimate plot twist all in such a brief number of pages, really left me wishing that I had gotten to see it unfurl a little slower. It felt like there were depths left to be explored, resolutions to be had. The decisions themselves felt clear and true to the story that Gillian Flynn was trying to tell; I just wished there had been more time.
I closed this book feeling a little dirty, feeling as if I have seen through a looking glass into a place where desperation and violence are the languages spoken. What I truly love about reading is the feeling of becoming one with the narrator – When I read Sharp Objects I am Camille, and she is me. The narration and the character herself have to seem real for this to happen, and it was Camille’s honesty and curiosity that kept me in her brain.
Perhaps this book was 'too much' in some ways. It relies very heavily on explicit violence and is not an 'enjoyable' read by all means. I do not enjoy reading these heavy themes just for the sake of it, and perhaps a different state of mind would change whether I found these brutal elements necessary, or over the top and unnecessary. Ultimately, I can understand those for whom this book holds no meaningful or enjoyable reading experience. For me, I can appreciate the craft of this story, and use its dark themes as an opportunity for thought and discussion.
I’m excited and intrigued to read more of Flynn’s work, and delve even more into the style of writing that allows for characters to be the worst version of themselves, yet stay tenderly believable despite it all.
This review contains discussion of violence, child abuse, and sexual violence.
This novel is the first of Gillian Flynn's novels that I have read, and it has been a reading experience that has certainly left its mark on me. This is a novel that licks its thumb and pushes it deep into a wound. I felt uncomfortable while reading this book. I felt this book get under my skin. Camille Preaker is a character who walks through the world in a repressed, almost detached way, viewing the violence around her almost as an itch to scratch, which turns her into a character who you can both sympathise with, and feel incredibly frustrated with.
The characters in this book speak with careful, biting words. No dialogue is padded or unnecessary, and each character’s way of speaking – the words, manner, or time they choose to speak – gives them a unique characterization. I can close my eyes and feel the distinct personhood.
This book covers some intriguing concepts of femininity and motherhood, childhood trauma, and sexual violence – all with a punch. The only place where this book faltered for me was towards the end, which ran a little too fast and tripped over its own feet.
CHILDHOOD AND UNFURLING WOMANHOOD
While some thrillers or mysteries can be technically complex yet stylistically and thematically one-dimensional, I felt that this book stood apart as having a grotesque, thoughtful underbelly. This story does not contain simple or cheap plot twists for the sake of grabbing your attention. It meanders. It ponders.
You gain small understandings as to why Camille is the way she is – the picture built of her childhood is painted slowly over the chapters. A recollection of her mother biting her as a child. The way she would know when her mother was stressed, because she would find tiny feathery piles of plucked eyelashes. Her childhood trauma, and its connection to the woman she becomes, is visceral and clear. You come to understand the frigid way that affection was dealt out in Camille’s home, and how the laborious ‘act’ of being a woman was more important to her mother than being herself.
‘The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you, my mother used to say.’ (p.290.)
This idea of how people, particularly women, are treated, leads into a theme that returns again and again in this book: deservedness. Camille has taken on this idea to her core. She says: ‘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.’ (p.222.)
Women are abused, demeaned, treated as objects. Camille often feels that they deserve this, that she deserves this. ‘A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort’, Camille says (p.320). Camille carves words into her skin because she deserves to take them on physically. This can mean words she is called out of cruelty, words she wants but will never obtain, words that make her feel guilt or shame. She calls this cutting both ‘proof’ and ‘truth’ (p.79); it is a process through which she self regulates and punishes herself all at once. It is, perhaps, an over the top and graphic portrayal of self harm, but it feels in place in a novel that is about such a morally diseased town, and morally diseased characters.
You can trace this behaviour back to the way her mother only gave her attention on her terms, the way Camille was treated throughout her adolescence by boys, the way the heavy conservatism of the town only rewards women who take on demure, motherly roles. When women do not fit into this role of being objects, they turn perverse, mean, sharp. ‘Sharp objects’ as a title seems less to describe the physical tools that are used for violence in this book. Rather, it describes the stripped down, objectified women who become cruel, hollow husks of themselves.
We want to love Amma, the sister who has grown up too quickly and uses cruelty as a way to keep her own soft core safe. Camille wants to love Amma. We want to save her, to fix her of all the wrongs that have already changed and warped her. We want to see her as a victim, rather than as an aggressor, and Camille spends much of this book struggling with this very idea. Can Amma become a better version of herself, or is she inherently wrong inside? Which women are sick due to the things that have happened to them, and which women are deeply irredeemable? This book will not give you the answers to these questions, but the process of asking them kept me thinking long after I put the book down.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE
This book is not cruel without reason, and while it contains no pointing of fingers at the causes of problems, no waxing poetic about its own themes, this novel is a constant hum of meaning.
The narrative is stained with the theme and effects of sexual violence, particularly towards women and girls. Sexual violence in this novel is not a hidden boogeyman, or something that emerges as a surprise or as a twist to the reader. It is an evident constant in the town of Wind Gap. It does not hide its face. It is normalized, not just by the standards of the town, but seemingly by the main character, Camille, herself.
In chapter eight, while explaining to Detective Richard Willis a series of sexual assaults directed towards girls at her high school growing up, Camille asks whether the events ‘count’ as rape, and becomes angry towards Richard for being ‘sexist’ by giving women special treatment and assuming that women don’t take part in or have any choice in this violence. It is a complex issue, one that is certainly not black and white, but Camille definitely displays a deeply rooted belief that the violent things that have happened to her are somehow her fault – for not being good enough, for not making different choices, for wanting to be punished.
While the detective may act as the rational outsider voice when discussing the sexual violence prevalent in the town – condemning it, and even expressing revulsion at Camille’s lack of criticism towards these incidents – we see that he is no more willing to come into contact with it and challenge it than any of the other men in Wind Gap. Furthermore, as the blossoming romance between Camille and the detective progresses, the sexual relationship between the two treads ever so lightly towards power-based sexual roles.
We want in the story for there to be a ‘good one’, an outsider to all this depravity that has become so commonplace that it is almost a rite of passage for young women. But that story – where we are allowed to crave justice and a change to the status quo – is not this story. The detective can bear to hear about, perhaps even challenge the idea of sexual violence, but witnessing the physical scarring of it on Camille’s body is too much. It becomes too real, too grotesque. He cannot separate himself from it, now that he has touched her, too.
TO END
For such a punchy book that crawled with a pace just fast enough to be impactful, and slow enough to keep you wondering and uncomfortable, the final chapter and epilogue of this book were fast to the point that it lost the full weight of potential impact.
Without revealing too much, speeding through a new setting, a developing relationship, intriguing new dynamics, and an ultimate plot twist all in such a brief number of pages, really left me wishing that I had gotten to see it unfurl a little slower. It felt like there were depths left to be explored, resolutions to be had. The decisions themselves felt clear and true to the story that Gillian Flynn was trying to tell; I just wished there had been more time.
I closed this book feeling a little dirty, feeling as if I have seen through a looking glass into a place where desperation and violence are the languages spoken. What I truly love about reading is the feeling of becoming one with the narrator – When I read Sharp Objects I am Camille, and she is me. The narration and the character herself have to seem real for this to happen, and it was Camille’s honesty and curiosity that kept me in her brain.
Perhaps this book was 'too much' in some ways. It relies very heavily on explicit violence and is not an 'enjoyable' read by all means. I do not enjoy reading these heavy themes just for the sake of it, and perhaps a different state of mind would change whether I found these brutal elements necessary, or over the top and unnecessary. Ultimately, I can understand those for whom this book holds no meaningful or enjoyable reading experience. For me, I can appreciate the craft of this story, and use its dark themes as an opportunity for thought and discussion.
I’m excited and intrigued to read more of Flynn’s work, and delve even more into the style of writing that allows for characters to be the worst version of themselves, yet stay tenderly believable despite it all.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes