Sharp Objects: Book Review

I just finished the book Sharp Objects, which is the debut novel of Gillian Flynn. Flynn is the author of the Gone Girl novel that broke out into the mainstream with the movie adaptation. Personally, I have seen neither the movie nor read that book—Sharp Objects is my first Flynn story—so my review will come from that perspective. Sharp Objects is a psychological horror novel that follows Camille Preaker, a severely disturbed woman who works as a reporter in Chicago. After a murder, followed by another abduction, in her hometown, she is sent back home to investigate for the purposes of a story. Camille is resistant from the outset—and once she does arrive, her complicated relationship with her mother, and the detached relationship with her half-sister, give light to the reasons.

This is not a story about an investigation nor is it really a thriller—this is a story about the dark side of femininity and psychological trauma, and it is heavily focused on character instead of plot.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel. The atmosphere was profoundly disturbing, with unsettling themes regarding sex, cruelty, and its relationship to femininity. The main character is so traumatized by her life that her disturbed understanding of that life just leaks through the page.

Strides (Spoilers)

The main thing I liked was the atmosphere of the story. Flynn does an amazing job communicating the psychologically wracked character of Camille through the narration itself. The commentary, the way the story is told, the types of relationships being portrayed, all communicate a depiction of life that feels damaged and twisted. Obviously, this is not the kind of the story that is for everyone. The story leaves you feeling that nothing in life is fulfilling, instead, either acting as a cope or as a direct imposition of trauma, each feeding off of one another in a perpetual cycle. This is done in a variety of ways.

The main character is the primary way in which this is done. Camille is a cutter, someone who carves words into her body; at the point of her life in which the story is told, Camille had ravaged her body to the point that she can't ever show her body to anyone, for fear that they might see what she has done. Only her face, a circle on her back, and her hands are left clear. In the aftermath of this cutting, which she has only just recently gotten over after a visit to a psychiatric ward six months in the past, Camille is consumed by self-loathing over her crawling skin and the words that flare up in pain in response to the events in the story. This recurring theme is the most obvious and physical representation of Camille's self-hatred that has resulted from a lifetime of trauma.

In addition to Camille's cutting, she also acted out in sexual ways, losing her virginity at the age of thirteen to four football players while drunk at a party. Her sexual exploits were gratuitous and plentiful after that, until her scars were so plentiful that she passed out of that phase. At the time in which the novel takes place, Camille has not had sex in ten years, having completely lost all personal connection. Even as this is the case, Camille has twisted ideas about consent, shown to rationalize her statutory gang rape at the age of thirteen as an act of her own agency, characterizing denouncements of the act as infantilizing to women; later in the story, she shows some perspective about her age when considering the behavior of Amma, who is thirteen in the book, but that is a development that comes much later.

Later in life, Camille still has damaging behaviors, even as she has gotten over her other vices. In particular, her alcoholism is very pronounced. She drinks constantly, going so far as to drink early in the morning. Flynn has her character pull strings at restaurants to get them to serve alcohol before the allotted time, and accept alcohol at simple house visits, and more.

Much of these issues are downstream of her mother's treatment of her while growing up. In the end of the story, it is revealed that her mother has Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, where she makes her children—including Camille—sick, so she can then care for them. Her mother had taken it to a point that she killed her second daughter. The only reason Camille was "saved" from such a fate was because she did not respond to her mother's care with neediness, but rather with rejection, making her mother resent her. Her mother's love would have killed her, and her hate destroyed her emotionally.

Aside from Camille, as the main character and the perspective from which we see the story, there are also the depictions of characters like Amma. Amma is merely thirteen years old, yet is described as having a woman's body already (and she knows it). She is profoundly sexual, strongly implied but never truly shown to have had sex many times up to this point. She is also profoundly cruel. The story, and her character, reads like a grimdark variant of Mean Girls, with Amma ruling over her grade like a tyrant, ensuring that beautiful girls like herself are at the top of the social hierarchy, and the ugly girls are at the bottom, subject to their terrorizing. This is done through typical feminine tactics of gossip and social sabotage. Amma also engages in numerous irresponsible and mature activities like drinking and taking drugs, which Camille actually does with her at one point in the story while they are bonding.

This atmosphere and the characterization done to achieve it are the strongest points of the novel. The novel, as I mentioned in the beginning of this post, is very character focused, with little to no plot. Some readers complain that the lack of plot, where "nothing happens," is one of the weak points, but I don't accept this critique. I don't think stories need to emphasize plot in order to work. The character work in this book is so strong that it carries the story.

Another major point that I really enjoyed was the strong focus on women, particularly the many female characters and their relationships. I thought the characterization of the worst aspects of femininity were accurate and engrossing. Of course, this comment is coming from the perspective of a man, though my comment is not meant to imply special knowledge of women; if anything, it should imply the opposite. Most stories I read are usually male-centric or gender neutral, so I definitely noticed the many female characters and their characteristic social pecking orders. When I started reading this, I thought Gillian Flynn was a man—I guess the first name can go either way—so I was rather intrigued that he was writing the story he was; there was a certain confidence to the way in which women were written that just felt like the person writing knew what they were doing. And then, of course, Flynn turns out to be a woman, so everything makes sense. Admittedly, petty high school drama driven by women usually makes me roll my eyes—I can't consume media garbage like that, nor could I handle it in real life—but this book's portrayal was not drama for drama's sake, but something much deeper and darker.

Apparently, this story was part of some controversy over its portrayal of women. Some think that it demonizes women, given that all of the characters are thoroughly unlikeable, while others claim that it is feminist, by showing that woman are complex and just as capable of dark intentions as men are. Obviously, I lean towards the latter position. The demonization of women is less so a slight against them as it is a result of writing a dark story that focuses on women. The only sense in which men escape this demonization is in the sense that they are sidelined altogether so that the women have more focus in the story. This story is about women.

The very ending of the novel is also a high point. It ends with Camille being taken in by her boss, who starts to care for her. The overall implication that I got from this was somewhat ambiguous. This could be the start of her healing, or it could be a continuation of her cycle of abuse. Camille ponders if she is bound to become her mother, through her treatment of Amma, or if she is different, though she concludes the novel with the thought that she's beginning to believe that she is truly acting out of empathy and care.

Missteps (Spoilers)

I think the biggest disappointment, which isn't a terribly large one, is the twist ending. From reviews and recommendations, many readers seem to think this twist ending is amazing and make the story what it is. I'm not sure I agree. It occurred to me rather early on that the mother could be the culprit, as soon as the obvious clues had been planted, and Amma's characterization (her visit to the pig abattoir) needed some sort of resolution, too. Once I had those two in mind, then I could put together a small puzzle that included both of them as explanations. I mentioned in my review of David Stewart's Eyes in the Walls that twist endings with unparsimonious explanations are harder to guess, but for this story, the trick was old, and the seeds of their guilt were clearly planted before us. The only reason I never outright cemented my opinion ahead of time that it was Adora and Amma was because it just seemed too obvious. Was that really supposed to be the twist? How could you not see it coming?

All of this said, I personally wasn't grabbed into the story by the twist ending, anyway. Everything I liked, I mentioned above. I'm actually disillusioned by the notion of twist endings to mysteries, at this point. I'm not sure how surprising these kinds of endings are anymore, especially when you are looking for the answer as you read through the book. This is something I noticed while watching Knives Out, after that ending reveal didn't really gut punch me. And I didn't dislike that movie either. I simple don't expect much from twists, and figure there are better parts of stories to be focused on.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked the book. I will give it a 7/10.