1 of 19 copies available
1 of 19 copies available
FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GONE GIRL
Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, 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 in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.
Praise for Sharp Objects
“Nasty, addictive reading.”—Chicago Tribune
“Skillful and disturbing.”—Washington Post
“Darkly original . . . [a] riveting tale.”—People
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Awards
-
Release date
September 26, 2006 -
Formats
-
OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780739346808
- File size: 276044 KB
- Duration: 09:35:05
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Levels
- Lexile® Measure: 770
- Text Difficulty: 3-4
-
Reviews
-
Reporter Camille Preaker is working for a third-rate Chicago newspaper when her editor sends her back to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri, to cover the murder and mutilation of a young girl. Ann Marie Lee delivers this first-person narrative in a sleepy, depressed-sounding tone that also sounds, at times, petulant or patronizing. Still, Lee's delivery builds tension with chilling undertones. This gripping novel is a foray into multiple generations of a deeply troubled family, and Camille herself is a young woman with a past. The descriptions of violence are truly unsettling and sinister. Warning: This novel may create images that are, even with time, difficult to forget. K.A.T. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine -
December 4, 2006
Flynn's debut novel focuses on an emotionally fragile young woman whose sanity is being severely tested by family dysfunction, smalltown incivility and murder. It is a mesmerizing psychological thriller that is also quite disturbing and, thanks to reader Lee's chillingly effective rendition, at times almost unbearably so. Camille Preaker, a novice reporter with a history of self-mutilation, is sent to her hometown in Missouri to cover the murder of one teenage girl and the disappearance of another. There, she must face a variety of monsters from the past and the present, including her aloof and patronizing mother, her obnoxiously precocious 13-year-old stepsister who dabbles in drugs, sex and humiliation, and an unknown serial killer whose mutilated victims bring back haunting memories. Lee's interpretation of mom enhances the character's detachment and airy state of denial to an infuriating degree. And her abrupt change of pace when Camille suddenly begins chanting the words carved on her body is hair-raising. But the voice Lee gives to the stepsister—tinged with a sarcastic, cynical and downright evil girly singsong—makes one's blood run cold. Simultaneous release with the Shaye Areheart hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 21). -
August 21, 2006
Flynn gives new meaning to the term "dysfunctional family" in her chilling debut thriller. Camille Preaker, once institutionalized for youthful self-mutilation, now works for a third-rung Chicago newspaper. When a young girl is murdered and mutilated and another disappears in Camille's hometown of Wind Gap, Mo., her editor, eager for a scoop, sends her there for a human-interest story. Though the police, including Richard Willis, a profiler from Kansas City, Mo., say they suspect a transient, Camille thinks the killer is local. Interviewing old acquaintances and newcomers, she relives her disturbed childhood, gradually uncovering family secrets as gruesome as the scars beneath her clothing. The horror creeps up slowly, with Flynn misdirecting the reader until the shocking, dreadful and memorable double ending. She writes fluidly of smalltown America, though many characters are clichés hiding secrets. Flynn, the lead TV critic for Entertainment Weekly
, has already garnered blurbs from Stephen King and Harlan Coben. 5-city author tour; foreign rights sold in 10 countries. -
Someone is killing little girls in Wind Gap, Missouri. Hoping to scoop the bigger newspapers, an editor at the Chicago Daily Post sends reporter Camille Preaker to the tiny town to cover the story. Wind Gap just happens to be Camille's hometown, the very place she left the first chance she got and never looked back. After her return, Camille slowly comes to realize that the murders and her own hidden horrors are more closely tied than she could have imagined. It's hard to describe this bone-chilling debut by Gillian Flynn (lead TV critic for Entertainment Weekly) without resorting to language that could be found in a horror movie trailer: haunting, shocking and skin-crawlingly creepy are all apt terms. But the story and the characters inhabiting it are anything but clichéd. Camille's hard-edged hypochondriac mother and her manipulative, beautiful much-younger stepsister occupy central roles, but just as intriguing are the Kansas City cop called in to assist on the case and John Keene, the brother of the most recent victim, whose open grieving makes many see him as a prime suspect. Camille herself is the most fascinating of the bunch. She has spent a lifetime trying to numb her pain by carving words into her body. Her left wrist bears the scar of "weary," while her back reads "spiteful" and "tangle," and her chest is branded with "blossom," "dosage" and "bottle." Camille literally ran out of room on her body before turning for help, and she now medicates her urge to cut with heavy doses of bourbon. Bringing the killer to light may be just the thing to liberate her own spirit. Sharp Objects is incredibly disturbing, but Flynn's powerful prose shines a light on the beauty that can rise out of dysfunction. With this novel's perfectly picked, sinister details (the killer is plucking his victims' baby teeth) and well-established pacing, readers will find themselves helplessly hurtling towards the haunting conclusion. Iris Blasi is a writer in New York City.
-