In “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn, the main character Camille Preaker, a journalist in Chicago, finds that her stressful job is the perfect way to distract herself from her childhood life back in Wind Gap, Missouri. That is, until her job leads her back to her hometown. 

Camille’s boss sends her back to Wind Gap in order to report on two strange murders of two young girls within a nine-month time frame. With these murders, both of the girls’ bodies were found with their teeth missing. 

Camille begrudgingly accepts the wishes of her boss to travel back to Wind Gap. Once she arrives, she realizes that this situation has a lot more going on behind the scenes than originally expected. 

The police are unwilling to talk about the murders and many of the residents of Wind Gap are unwilling as well. There seems to be more to these murders than what meets the eye. 

Camille involves herself in a few sexual relationships in order to find out some more information about the murders, and she succeeds in this plan. Once Camille had the information she thought necessary, she was ready to head back to Chicago, but her boss requested she stay longer. 

With a longer stay than she originally anticipated, Camille decided she had to go back to a place she dreaded going back to: her mother’s house. 

Her mother, Adora, married a new man and Camille has a new half-sister who rules all of Wind Gap, at least the high school. Her half-sister, Amma, seems to have it all. She gets all of Adora’s attention, which is something Camille never got. 

The longer Camille stays with her mother, the more she realizes that there is a lot more going on that she might have not noticed when she was younger and living at home. 

Adora has Munchausen syndrome, which means that, as a caregiver, she makes up or exaggerates illnesses of the people she is taking care of in order to draw attention to them. 

This leads Camille, and the police of Wind Gap, to believe that Adora caused the murders in Wind Gap. Adora was arrested and charged with the murders. However, there are always wicked twists and turns in Wind Gap and that does not stop with Adora’s arrest. 

This book was amazing. Before reading this book, I read “Gone Girl” — the novel that Gillian Flynn is most known for. “Gone Girl” was amazing, but “Sharp Objects” was even better. 

Gillian Flynn’s best quality as a writer is her ability to create unexpected twists and turns. So many things happened in “Sharp Objects” that I never would have imagined happening. These twists and turns make this book impossible to put down.

Flynn also does a great job describing characters in a concise manner so you know just enough about them, but not too much that it feels distracting. 

“Sharp Objects” is a devious, winding road with unexpected turns at any point. Once you start to understand what is going on and have a grasp at what the solution to the problem may be, Flynn takes that and throws it out the window. 

If you like mystery books, books that keep you on your toes, or books that are difficult to put down, I would definitely recommend “Sharp Objects.” If you liked “Gone Girl,” give “Sharp Objects” a try. It is just as devious and has almost more twists and turns. 

GoodReads reviewers gave “Sharp Objects” 3.96/5 stars, and Amazon reviewers gave the novel 4.2/5 stars.

Clausing can be reached at [email protected].