Sharp Objects — Not what I expected

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I went into this with really high expectations because the author wrote Gone Girl (which I loved, and the movie was great too). Sadly, Sharp Objects isn't... It had a slow build-up that made me think it was going somewhere, but in the end it just disappointed me. The pacing dragged, the “twists” were predictable, and I honestly just wanted to get it over with or not finish at all.

What really pushed me away was how irresponsibly this was written. There’s a point where the narrator basically says if very young girls put themselves in risky situations (yes, these undeveloped frontal lobe kids), it’s ‘their fault’. Add to that the disturbing depiction of 13-year-olds drinking, using drug$, and getting r@p3d by six men.. That’s not edgy, it’s gross.. And don’t even get me started on the main character, a 30-year-old, from being reserved to banging a teenager boy, and doing drug$ with her 13-year-old sister?? What a character development. Are you okay, Gillian? Realistically, ages, actions, morals, none of it lines up. I could rant forever, but I’m not wasting another second on this disaster; I’ve suffered enough already.

I originally rated this 2 stars, but the more I thought about it the more frustrated I got, so I dropped it to 1. Maybe it’s because I expected the same level of brilliance as Gone Girl, but this felt flat, disturbing for the wrong reasons, and not worth the time I put into it. Honestly, I wish I had just DNF’d.