Book Title: Dark Places
Author: Gillian Flynn
Publisher: Crown Publishers
Source: Purchased
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Year: 2009
Page Count: 538
ISBN: 9780804138338
Find it at: Gillian Flynn's Official Website
Warning: Contains explicit murder scenes and some vulgarity
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My Rating: 5.0 out of 5.0
Goodreads' Blurb:
Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice" of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.
After the hype of Gone Girl, I had been curious of Gillian Flynn's works. But I ruled out the mainstream and tried Dark Places first, based on reviews I read. Thriller and mystery are genres are not really my main and favorite stuffs, but I can like, appreciate and am willing to read the good ones. Robert Galbraith and Abigail Haas' works are one of them.
In my opinion, thriller and mystery books are not like contemporary or fantasy young adults which are able to put different colours and sensation in the content. Thriller and mystery books are all typical. There are criminal cases, the process of finding out the truth, the chill and thrill when you read while guessing your speculations and then finally you get the answers. But there is something for me that makes Gillian Flynn's book truly high-class and stands out among other books within the same genre. Gillian Flynn does not follow the usual plot and flow that are common in the genre. She does not cheaply give away the clues and hints. The way she wraps the case is very gentle. Thus all speculations I made, were not really that strong. All in all, Dark Places is more that just mind-wrecked.
There are great deals of main and supporting characters in this book. But each of them has strong characteristics. Take this as an example, there are four children in the Day family. As you read their childhood story, you can see that Ben is a strange and unsociable boy who has malignancy inside him which he does not even understand; Michelle is a curious, meddling girl; Debby the crybaby; and Libby, the youngest of the family, who always needs someone to lead her. One of my favourite characters in this book is Diondra. Flynn shaped her into a tremendously horrifying character, in a savage way, despite her being a seventeen year old teenager.
I've read that this book is adapted into a movie too and I can't wait to see it immediately. Even though when I read the cast list, I just could not imagine how Charlize Theron playing Libby. So what's of Gillian Flynn that I need to read next? I'm just not sure it will be Gone Girl. Sharp Objects is in line immediately once I'm recovered from Gillian Flynn's syndrome.
