Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Look at me, turning in a Gillian Flynn scholar. A reluctant one. Like my read of Dark Places, with Sharp Objects I was in a situation where I was done with one book and nothing else to read, nor a handy way to get something new. Sharp Objects already on the e-reader (my wife’s). I realize I’m repeating myself, introducing a review like this. But I think it’s apt: some books are only to be read because there’s nothing else to read.
So, let’s see: I’ve read the Flynn novels now in reverse order of publication. Oddly, this one, Sharp Objects, is the best of the three, in my opinion. I’m trying to damn with faint praise, here—Sharp Objects is only better because Gone Girl has that terrible ending and Dark Places is just gritty and mean and hateful.
Sharp Objects is a bit of a combination of the two. We’re in Missouri, we’re surrounded by people who justify the term “fly-over,” we’re inundated with alcohol, drugs, and sex. What Bret Easton Ellis would have written if instead of a small college town in Vermont, he had pig-factory town in the Midwest to work with.
Most of all, Sharp Objects reaffirms my take from the other Flynn novels: misogynistic. Every female character is cliché, a stereotype. Here’s a direct quote from the main character: “illness sits inside every woman, waiting to bloom.” Go ahead, tell me that this is a fiercely political point of view, more “gonzo feminism.”
Maybe. If the writing was better. If the “twist” ending wasn’t so tossed-in-at-the-last-minute, if half the things the main character did made sense, if, as I mentioned above, the threadbare storyline was patched together with more than sex, and alcohol, and drugs.
If you liked Flowers in the Attic but are all grown up now, you’ll love Sharp Objects. Here’s my prediction: Lena Dunham will star in the film version. Not the creative force-to-be-reckoned-with-Lena from Girls. No, I mean the Lena Dunham who’s been castigated for the terrible things she proudly, gushingly confessed to in her autobiography.