Scan barcode
A review by bookishwelshie
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
4.0
Libby Day’s life fell apart when she only seven years old. She was hiding in the closet and heard her mother and two sisters being brutally murdered. She testified in court that it was her older brother Ben who committed this unbelievable act of shocking brutality. She is now forever known as the sole survivor of The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.
Twenty five years later, Libby is contacted by a secret society who are obsessed with true crime/murder cases called The Kill Club. She is struggling for money so agrees to give a talk about that terrible night to the club. But when she arrives there, she is grilled with questions, it is very apparent that the members think that Ben is innocent.
She agrees to reconnect with key players from that night and report her findings to the club - but for a fee. She even goes to visit her brother in jail for the first time.
The book goes back and forth between the present day and the past - to January 2nd 1985, when the killings took place.
Ben Day is a troubled teen with a darkness inside of him. We see as his story plays out that he was accused of committing another unspeakably evil crime, involving a young girl in the town called Krissy. But even after that is revealed, is he guilty of murdering his family? And if it wasn’t Ben, then who did it? Could there still be a murderer on the loose, and would they come after Libby for digging too close to the truth?
Gillian Flynn knows how to write a solid, engaging, thriller story. There was an uncomfortable, unsettling feeling for the reader here where you may start to feel empathetic towards Ben, only to be thrown the curveball that even if he *could* be innocent of murder that he still has this dark-side to him. You’re left questioning him until the penny drops… I’ll say no more but everything falls into place.
I like not trying to guess every single twist and turn in a story like this and just allow myself to become completely absorbed. The twists here felt dark and satisfying as a reader. Even if you may not agree with, or outright despise, some of the characters actions.. that what makes this such a compelling read!
I ended up falling into abit of slump with this book for absolutely no reason, so I watched the Charlize Theron movie when I was about halfway through reading. The movie was good, but the book added in some great extra details. So preferred the book overall! The ending is very satisfactory, it’s worth sticking with for sure!
Twenty five years later, Libby is contacted by a secret society who are obsessed with true crime/murder cases called The Kill Club. She is struggling for money so agrees to give a talk about that terrible night to the club. But when she arrives there, she is grilled with questions, it is very apparent that the members think that Ben is innocent.
She agrees to reconnect with key players from that night and report her findings to the club - but for a fee. She even goes to visit her brother in jail for the first time.
The book goes back and forth between the present day and the past - to January 2nd 1985, when the killings took place.
Ben Day is a troubled teen with a darkness inside of him. We see as his story plays out that he was accused of committing another unspeakably evil crime, involving a young girl in the town called Krissy. But even after that is revealed, is he guilty of murdering his family? And if it wasn’t Ben, then who did it? Could there still be a murderer on the loose, and would they come after Libby for digging too close to the truth?
Gillian Flynn knows how to write a solid, engaging, thriller story. There was an uncomfortable, unsettling feeling for the reader here where you may start to feel empathetic towards Ben, only to be thrown the curveball that even if he *could* be innocent of murder that he still has this dark-side to him. You’re left questioning him until the penny drops… I’ll say no more but everything falls into place.
I like not trying to guess every single twist and turn in a story like this and just allow myself to become completely absorbed. The twists here felt dark and satisfying as a reader. Even if you may not agree with, or outright despise, some of the characters actions.. that what makes this such a compelling read!
I ended up falling into abit of slump with this book for absolutely no reason, so I watched the Charlize Theron movie when I was about halfway through reading. The movie was good, but the book added in some great extra details. So preferred the book overall! The ending is very satisfactory, it’s worth sticking with for sure!