"I am a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It's covered with words - cook, cupcake, kitty, curls - as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: babydoll. Pull on a sweater and, in a flash of my wrist: harmful. Why these words? Thousands of hours of therapy have yielded a few ideas from the good doctors. They are often feminine, in a Dick and Jane, pink vs. puppy dog tails sort of way. Or they're flat-out negative. Number of synonyms for anxious carved in my skin: eleven. The one thing I know for sure is that at the time, it was crucial to see these letters on me, and not just see them, but feel them. Burning on my left hip: petticoat.
And near it, my first word, slashed on an anxious summer day at age thirteen: wicked. I woke up that morning, hot and bored, worried about the hours ahead. How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. I remember feeling that word, heavy and slightly sticky across my pubic bone. My mother's steak knife. Cutting like a child along red imaginary lines. Cleaning myself. Digging in deeper. Cleaning myself. Pouring bleach over the knife and sneaking through the kitchen to return it. Wicked. Relief. The rest of the day, I spent ministering to my wound. Dig into the curves of W with an alcohol-soaked Q-tip. Pet my cheek until the sting went away. Lotion. Bandage. Repeat."
Sharp Objects is not a novel for the faint-hearted, it's a raw exploration of abuse: inflicted on the self and others as a way to relieve pain. It's a heavily charged drama disguised as a psychological thriller. It is a literary work full of flawed characters that you either fall in love with or are scared of.
PLOT
Camille Preacker is a reporter who has recently left a mental hospital after secluding herself due to self-harm. She is asked by her boss to come back to her hometown, Wind Gap, to cover the disappeareance of a young girl, Natalie Keene, this seems to be related with the murder of Anne Nash, a girl who was violently murdered not long ago. Camille's boss believes these actions might have been perpetrated by the same person.
Camille comes back to reunite with the phantoms of a past that have never left her alone. Camille is scared of coming back to a house where she never felt welcomed. Adora, her mother, receives her as coldy as it could be possible as Camille feels the old resentment and awkwardness come back to her. She also meets once more her stepsister, Amma.
The novel covers the clues and investigation that Camille develops throughout the novel, much to her mother's dismay who believes Camille is using people's mysery to writer her article. Adora worries excessively on what people think of her, being one of the richest and most powerful women in Wind Gap. Camille is always on edge due to her mother's criticism as well as the memory of her deceased sister, Marian, who seems to have carved the toxic relationship with her mother who purposedly refused to love her.
After Natalie Keene is found dead, matters get much more complicated and Camille suspects the murderer might be closer than she believes not only someone from town, but someone extremely close to her.
I considered the novel did not focus so much on the investigation but on Camille's psyche as well as her twisted family: a cold and manipulative mother, a spoiled and malicious sister; and a distant almost absent stepfather. This was done purposely by Gillian Flynn to bring to life one of the most disturbing families that one could ever imagine.
STRUCTURE
The novel is narrated in first person by protagonist, Camille. The novel takes place in the present while some flashbacks reveal some of her background specially concerning Marian's death as well as her complicated relationship with her mother during her childhood and adolescence. Most importantly, these flashbacks narrate how Camille started to self-harm as a way to stay present, to fill the void of boredom, to relieve her pain, to mourn her dead sister.
THEMES
Self harm as well as mental illness are deeply explored in the novel.
The consequences of the lack of love are also explored as Adora grew up as a child that was never loved, so she continued the same cycle with Camille who ended up as a wounded and oversensitive child.
One of the most trascendental topics is what hurt, damaged and apparently fragile women are able to do. This is a novel about these type of women, some of them might believe they deserve the pain while others will decide to inflict it on others.
CHARACTER: 10/10
PLOT DEVELOPMENT: 10/10
THEMES: 10/10
What are your thoughts on this book? Did you find it too somber?
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