I wanted to read this before watching the show and now I’m not sure if I can go through the story again. There was a lot to love here: awkward reporter Camille Preaker gets sent back reluctantly to her creepy southern hometown to cover the murder of two young girls. I’ve heard it compared to season 1 of True Detective and I agree. It’s got the setting in the deep south, the bleak small town with secrets, and the troubled protagonist whom you suspect might be doomed either way.
I don’t want to give away too much because there were some good reveals that were part of the fun, but Camille must stay with her moneyed and quasi-estranged mother, milquetoast stepfather and their nightmare of a preteen daughter who has figured out how to appease her parents and be a vicious bully while their backs are turned. To get the story, Camille has to dive into her on childhood which involves her own history of self-mutilation and a sister who died suspiciously.
I loved the slow burn of “Sharp Objects”. You gradually realize how deeply effed-up the Preaker family is as the story is unreliably narrated through the haze of Camille’s drinking and slowly realizing these things herself. While part of me dreaded the next plot point, I also could not stop and housed this book in a day or so. It’s a fun and surprising thriller, but the darkness doesn’t let up. Maybe have some cartoons handy to chase the bleakness away after?