Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Sharp Objects

by Gillian Flynn

When two girls, aged nine and ten are abducted and killed in Wind Gap, Missouri, Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to investigate and report on the crimes. Camille, self-described 'white trash from old money', is the daughter of one of the richest families in town. Long-haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her mother for years, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's Victorian mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and the half-sister she barely knows, a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town and surrounds herself with a group of vampish teenage girls. As Camille struggles to remain detached from the evidence, her relationship with her neurotic, hypochondriac mother threatens to topple her hard-won mental stability. Working alongside the police chief and a special agent from out of town, Camille tries to uncover the mystery of who killed these little girls and why. But there are deeper psychological puzzles: Why does Camille identify so strongly with the dead girls? And how is this connected to the death of another sister years earlier?

Reviewed by Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews on

5 of 5 stars

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Camille Preaker, has just been released from the Chicago psych hospital and returns to her job as a reporter at a second rate paper. Upon her arrival her boss gives her a murder case to report on which took place in her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri. Taking this assignment means that she will have to return to a place she hasn't visited in eight years and must face her haunted past which includes a hypochondriac mother, a sister who died when she was a preteen and another who she barely knows.

The murder victims are two young preteen girls killed a few months apart from each other. Both girls where dolled up so to speak {shaved legs or painted toe nails} both very out of character for Ann and Natalie. Afterward, they were strangled and had all their teeth pulled out. These heinous acts has everyone in the community questioning: who could have committed such a crime in this seemingly pleasant small town?

Sharp Objects is a well paced novel keeping the reader in suspense through out. I tried to savor the last thirty pages but became such a page-turner as the murderer became uncovered I had a hard time doing so. Even after it appears that it is solved, cased closed, the Epilogue tells us differently, it uncovers an accomplice of sorts and reveals a last mystery in the novel.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 6 June, 2009: Finished reading
  • 6 June, 2009: Reviewed