Book Stop Corner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.”



Gillian Flynn, the American best-selling author who rose to fame with her debut book, Sharp Objects and with her latest psycho thriller centered around a broken marriage, Gone Girl, has woven a bone-chilling and mind-numbing psychological thriller, Dark Places which is her second book after Sharp Objects. Honestly, I never heard of this author before Gone Girl's release. And after the movie installment of her third book, Gone Girl, it seems that the sales of her first and second books have sky-rocketed.



Dark Places is centered around a woman named Libby Day who was a murder survivor when her whole family was slaughtered on the night of January 3rd, 1985. Libby is now 31 years old and along with her we trace back the loose ends and the loops in the investigation of this murder which convicted her brother, Ben Day, as the killer.


Synopsis:

Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.

Since then, she has been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother's? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back?

She begins to realize that everyone in her family had something to hide that day... especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find.

Who did massacre the Day family?


Well, I was so surprised when the book didn't turn out to be that mind-blowing which all the rave reviews happen to claim about. I'm sorry to say but please ignore all those 5star and 4star reviews of this particular book. Flynn couldn't represent the plot like she always do and it could have been much better and also it did not match up to my expectation level, mainly due to the changing perspective thing.

From the synopsis, it sounds like the story is all about Libby and her ways of coming to terms with the truth and the identity of the real killer. Instead, Flynn chose to revolve the story around Libby's mother, Patty and her brother, Ben who narrates the events happened in and around their life on the day before the massacre of the Day family, leading up to it. And each chapter in this book alternates the POV from Patty to Libby to Ben, where Libby narrates the events of her present day, along with some flashbacks of that day.

One place where I couldn't find any fault was the characterization. I mean Flynn is a brilliant author who can create completely unlovable and unlikeable characters and can eventually make us sympathize with them. Similarly, in Dark Places too, Flynn creates her central character, Libby, as repulsive and repugnant with a kleptomaniac side, thus there was nothing to root for her in the beginning of the book. But as Flynn layers her plot with mysteries and twists and as Libby realizes the flaws behind the investigation and her coerced testimony against Ben, we instantly fell for her character and started rooting for her.

The other two central characters, Patty and Ben, was the key to this whole mystery, but I think it was so unnecessary to include their narration right in the start of the story when we are trying to contemplate with Libby. Patty will strike you as someone very brave and strong with determination to keep her family afloat despite of her financial situation. Whereas Ben portrayed as a 15year old teenager, is sick of his mother and his three little sisters and with his red hair thus devoting towards Satan worshiping along with a bunch of other psycho kids.

Once again, the backdrop is set across Missouri, the author's hometown. And in the book, Kansas City plays a major role in the background. Moreover, the flair of Missouri is very evident in the narration, mannerisms and the demeanor of the characters.

In the very beginning, the mystery is wrapped tightly under layers of twists and turns, but almost in the middle of the book, the author casually unravels the identity of the killer and then it's just a matter of time for Libby to figure it out by herself. The writing is okay, not so-over-the-top, and the prose is bit slow maybe due to the quick shifting of perspective, which can be a bit confusing at times. I mean it's like we have to keep up with three different stories to understand the mystery.

The details and the visual imagery of the events are intricately and vividly depicted by the author, thus giving a bone-chilling and creepy effect to the plot, some details are also bit disturbing and I literally had to shut my eyes to stop myself from picturing those scenes.

In a nutshell, it's an okay book which you can definitely read if you enjoy reading a nice, edgy psychological thriller. But, like me, if you've already read Gone Girl, then this book might be a huge disappointment for you.

Read the review of Gone Girl

PS: Please ignore all the 5star and 4star reviews of this book, since it could mislead you. 




The movie adaption of the book, Dark Places, will hit the screens later this year starring Charlize Theron as Libby Day, Chloë Grace Moretz as Diondra, Nicholas Hoult as Lyle, Christina Hendricks as Patty Day and Tye Sheridan as Ben Day.

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Author Info:

Gillian Flynn was born in Kansas City, Missouri to two community-college professors—her mother taught reading; her father, film. Thus she spent an inordinate amount of her youth nosing through books and watching movies. She has happy memories of having A Wrinkle in Time pried from her hands at the dinner table, and also of seeing Alien, Psycho and Bonnie and Clyde at a questionable age (like, seven). It was a good childhood.
In high-school, she worked strange jobs that required her to do things like wrap and unwrap hams, or dress up as a giant yoghurt cone. A yoghurt cone who wore a tuxedo. Why the tuxedo? It was a question that would haunt her for years.
For college, she headed to the University of Kansas (go Jayhawks), where she received her undergraduate degrees in English and journalism.
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