WICKED above her hipbone, GIRL across her heart
Words are like a road map to reporter Camille Preaker’s troubled past. Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, Camille’s first assignment from the second-rate daily paper where she works brings her reluctantly back to her hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls.

NASTY on her kneecap, BABYDOLL on her leg
Since she left town eight years ago, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed again in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille is haunted by the childhood tragedy she has spent her whole life trying to cut from her memory.

HARMFUL on her wrist, WHORE on her ankle
As Camille works to uncover the truth about these violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Clues keep leading to dead ends, forcing Camille to unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past to get at the story. Dogged by her own demons, Camille will have to confront what happened to her years before if she wants to survive this homecoming.

With its taut, crafted writing, Sharp Objects is addictive, haunting, and unforgettable.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Shambhala Pubns
Publication date

26 Sept. 2006
Dimensions

16.18 x 2.69 x 24.16 cm
ISBN-10

0307341542
ISBN-13

978-0307341549
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Product details

Publisher : Shambhala Pubns; First Edition (26 Sept. 2006)
Language : English
Hardcover : 272 pages
ISBN-10 : 0307341542
ISBN-13 : 978-0307341549
Dimensions : 16.18 x 2.69 x 24.16 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 5,887,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 243,788 in Thrillers (Books)

Customer reviews:
11,955 ratings

Product description

About the Author

Gillian Flynn is the chief TV critic at Entertainment Weekly. She lives in Chicago, where she is writing her second novel.

Customer reviews

5 star		63%
4 star		21%
3 star		11%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

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BrutalHonesty91

Dark & Thought-Provoking - I couldn't put it down

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 November 2018

Verified Purchase

I very rarely review books as I find it hard to do so without revealing anything - for Sharp Objects, I've made an exception. I purchased this book after seeing all the hype about the TV series - I wanted to read the book first because so often, they are better than the cinematic offering.

This book is well-written, fast paced and entirely riveting. The compelling nature of the prose, the subject matter and the hard momentum driving the story makes for a psychologically gripping tale that'll stay with you for a long time to come. I have heard some quite negative feedback in terms of the style of writing but would point out that Sharp Objects was written for a teenage audience as opposed to an adult one. Personally, I feel the author has knocked it out of the park with this one, regardless of the reader's age.

It is dark, enchanting, thought-provoking and utterly gripping. I have awarded the book 4 stars from a possible 5 and I am more than happy to recommend it to other readers. Apologies for such a scant review - it's hard to say much without offering any spoilers!

If this review has been helpful to you please take the time to rate it by clicking 'yes' below. Many thanks!

27 people found this helpful

Helpful

last year's girl

What a nasty, horrible little book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 November 2018

Verified Purchase

You know, there’s not a lot I can’t stomach. There is, however, one topic on which I’d benefit from the proverbial trigger warning – and had my copy of Sharp Objects come with the original razor blade cover and not illustrated with a greetin’-faced Amy Adams, I probably would have figured it out.

But that’s not why I hated this book.

The debut novel from the author of Gone Girl – well, it just reads like a first novel. So much so that, five chapters in, I thought it might be worth catching the recent TV adaptation to see how the source material benefitted from a redraft. However, after 15 chapters of the author working through all of her most depraved ideas like a kid in a sandbox full of poison and rattlesnakes – followed by a breathless rush of plot in the final 30 pages – I was ready to set both it and the rest of my bookshelf on fire.

There’s a real nastiness to Sharp Objects: both in the heart of central character Camille, whose snippy, bitter observations about her home town and the people that she left behind go beyond that of your typical small town escapee; and in the plot. And the seedy, tossed-off details that provide “colour” to that plot: the younger sister’s obsession with factory-farm pigs. Statutory gang rape as a feminist right of passage. The throwaway “fridging” of one final murder victim. In fact, by that point I was rolling my eyes at every additional, unnecessary horror. Better that than let it bother me.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

jacw2000

Worth reading - albeit bleak

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 May 2016

Verified Purchase

You leave Hicksville, Missouri and move to the big city, where you get a job on the newspaper as a reporter. All is well and good until your editor sends you back to Hicksville to report on two children murdered in that small town. As the book progresses, we start to learn more and more disturbing stuff. Happening now, happening in flashbacks to the past. Pretty much all the central characters are warped in some way.

It isn't a detective story - the cops are almost peripheral. We don't really know what the police are doing, and in a way it doesn't matter much - they come in at the end to make an arrest. It's a psychological thriller - most of the action takes place between the ears of the reporter. Her flaws and her damaged personality are key - that and her relationships with the other characters.

Worth reading - albeit bleak in the extreme. It probably won't appear in the Hicksville Bookshop under a "Local Author" sign

14 people found this helpful

Helpful

T. J. Blake

Atmospheric characterisation and narration.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 July 2018

Verified Purchase

It's dark, gritty, and at times, uncomfortable. But that's what Gillian Flynn creates purposefully and brilliantly through her atmospheric characterisation and narration.

Of course, I wasn't introduced to Gillian Flynn until I read Gone Girl, which by the way, I loved. It instantly became one of my favourite books. I wanted more from her. This is when I was attracted to Sharp Objects. Her debut novel.

We are introduced to a Camille Preaker, a young journalist trying to make a better life for herself. Her sister Marian died at a young age and Camille has been battling her own demons. Her family is hurting and so is Camille, but she wants to focus on her career. That is until she's sent back to her hometown to report on the death of a girl in Wind Gap, Missouri, her hometown. Another girl is missing, and this is thought by her boss, Curry, to be a big story told by a local.

This is not a detective mystery where we follow the police. Law enforcement doesn't exist in this story.

Camille is investigator, reporter and resident. It's dark, it's gritty, it's disturbing, it's creepy. This is all achieved, in my opinion, from the characterisation.

The story itself is painfully slow. I actually found myself telling my better half repeatedly, 'nothing has happened'. The last 85% though is where EVERYTHING happens. It came and went as quick as a box of Krispy Kreme donuts!

To conclude, I enjoyed the way the story was told but I thought the book was way too slow.

10 people found this helpful

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Sharp Objects: A Novel Hardcover – 26 Sept. 2006

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