by Gillian Flynn
ebook
978-0-307-35148-7
Shaye Areheart / Crown / Random House
Rating (on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being best)
Plot: 4
Characters: 3.5
Writing: 3.5
Final: 3.66
Comments: Something about this book just didn't quite work for me. There are some interesting ideas and images here, but there was just too much--too bad Tim Gunn wasn't there to tell her to bring her editing eye to this project. In the video below, the author describes intending the book to have a fairy-tale quality to it so maybe that explains the excess.
Publisher's description
WICKED above her hipbone, GIRL across her heart
Words are like a road map to reporter Camille Preaker’s troubled past. Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, Camille’s first assignment from the second-rate daily paper where she works brings her reluctantly back to her hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls.
NASTY on her kneecap, BABYDOLL on her leg
Since she left town eight years ago, 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 again in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille is haunted by the childhood tragedy she has spent her whole life trying to cut from her memory.
HARMFUL on her wrist, WHORE on her ankle
As Camille works to uncover the truth about these violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Clues keep leading to dead ends, forcing Camille to unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past to get at the story. Dogged by her own demons, Camille will have to confront what happened to her years before if she wants to survive this homecoming.
That plot summary makes it sound interesting! I do love gothic, fairy tale-feeling stories.
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad it was too much though...wasn't this her debut? Maybe she was just very excited and wanted to cram everything in?
Hi Eva!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing about how this being her first book may have caused her "to cram everything in."
I've been wondering, though, whether I might have felt differently about it if I'd known from the beginning that it was meant to be like a fairy tale.