Lee Hunts

I just finished reading The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. This is a play that I have read before, but I wanted to revisit it because I remember enjoying it quite a bit. Plays are not my favorite format—especially, but not exclusively—because I am just reading it. That said, for obvious reasons, I am not looking to short the story because of this fact. The Crucible is a story about the Salem Witch Trials, where a small town was caught in a craze of people hunting down witches supposedly hidden among its people. Miller write this in the time of the Red scare, led by Joseph McCarthy, as he hunted down communists that were hidden amongst America's celebrities. While Communists did and do exist, and while no one was being killed (thankfully), Miller thought there were parallels in the fanaticism and how the tribunals were executed. Basically, people were prompted to give up names in order to exonerate themselves, and since people were looking to protect their careers, they would follow th...

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...