Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Let me just say that this isn’t the kind of book I generally gravitate to. And that I need to stop reading such morbidly violent books while pregnant! But it is a debut novel by an Entertainment Weekly writer (I love that magazine an obscene amount) and the reviews were good. Camille Preaker is a young journalist who isn’t quite as accomplished as she could be. But her boss believes in her, and pushes her into a big assignment in her old hometown. Two young girls have been found strangled with their teeth pulled out within a year of each other. Camille heads back to a home she has avoided for years to investigate. She stays with her Mom, a beautiful, rich socialite who is as chilly and strange as they come, a vacant step-father, and precociously dangerous, popular teenage half-sister. I was drawn to read the book from the descriptions of the dysfunctional family—and boy is it dysfunctional. Camille has been living in the shadow of her sister who died, and receives no love from her mother. Camille’s past and her family’s secrets get dragged out in the investigation, and there are a few surprises therein. Not, perhaps, as surprising as they could have been. But if you’re in the mood for a dark thriller, this is a compelling one.