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Loading... Dark Places (edition 2010)by Gillian Flynn (Author)
Work InformationDark Places by Gillian Flynn
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. As Libby investigates her family's death to exonerate her own guilt, she unravels some unbelievable reveals. Best intentions go horribly wrong. Dreams and plans are misinterpreted. Greed and fear create lies. Actions do have consequences and when all these things conspire willing and unknowingly, it creates an amalgam of events that ends up in tragedy. A tragedy that doesn't really get justice because when it's all said and done, there's no bringing back the dead. This was not an easy read. This does not contain a happy ending nor a satisfying conclusion. This was something that was hard to get through but admittedly, was compelling nonetheless. This is my first Gillian Flynn book, and wow, can she write! Dark Places is a fabulous journey, not only regarding the storyline, but the way words are used, how commas are placed, and the cadence of the sentences - it all flowed so seamlessly, so real, so unscripted. So many writers, myself included, can get hung up on the properness of grammar, syntax usage, and the transition of sentences - because we are told that is the 'right' way to write. Ms. Flynn wrote Dark Places from her characters' voices without regard to rules and "supposed tos," and she nailed it. Suffice to say, the writing is what I am most thrilled about, but the plot does not fall short or even come in second place - it too is worthy of much reflection. Dark Places is the name a survivor of her family's murders uses when she recalls what took place when she was seven years old. The book twists from the murders to the present (twenty-five years later), following how Libby, the survivor, is coping while learning the truth about the murders that left her brother sitting in prison. An outstanding story with excellent writing; both readers and writers will enjoy Dark Places. I will read another Gillian Flynn book. no reviews | add a review
Is contained inAwardsDistinctions
Fiction.
Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl, and the basis for the major motion picture starring Charlize Theron 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 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. Praise for Dark Places “[A] nerve-fraying thriller.”—The New York Times “Flynn’s well-paced story deftly shows the fallibility of memory and the lies a child tells herself to get through a trauma.”—The New Yorker “Gillian Flynn coolly demolished the notion that little girls are made of sugar and spice in Sharp Objects, her sensuous and chilling first thriller. In Dark Places, her equally sensuous and chilling follow-up, Flynn . . . has conjured up a whole new crew of feral and troubled young females. . . . [A] propulsive and twisty mystery.”—Entertainment Weekly “Flynn follows her deliciously creepy Sharp Objects with another dark tale . . . The story, alternating between the 1985 murders and the present, has a tense momentum that works beautifully. And when the truth emerges, it’s so macabre not even twisted little Libby Day could see it coming.”—People (4 stars) “Crackles with peevish energy and corrosive wit.” —Dallas Morning News “A riveting tale of true horror by a writer who has all the gifts to pull it off.”—Chicago Tribune "It's Flynn's gift that she can make a caustic, self-loathing, unpleasant protagonist someone you come to root for.”—New York Magazine “[A] gripping thriller.”—Cosmopolitan "Gillian Flynn is the real deal, a sharp, acerbic, and compelling storyteller with a knack for the macabre.”—Stephen King. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The book is told through three perspectives: Libby in the present day, as well as Ben and their mother Patty in the past. We learn about the poverty the four Day children lived in on the family farm, their father's cruelty towards them, their mother's despair. We watch Libby's certitude about what happened on that terrifying night begin to erode as she digs deeper into the story, becomes invested despite herself. And we finally learn the truth of what happened, and Libby finds herself in danger of not surviving this time.
If you've read Flynn's enormously-bestselling Gone Girl (and you probably have, everyone has at this point, right?), you know that she really enjoys writing unlikable characters. Dark Places is not different on that score: Libby is prickly and angry, and although she obviously suffering from untreated PTSD and depression, it doesn't make her a pleasant person to spend time with. Teenage Ben has an inexplicable relationship with his rich and mean high school girlfriend, and a deeply problematic involvement with an elementary school girl. Patty is probably the most sympathetic, but her inability to protect her children from their father and the consequences of her own decisions make her difficult to really emotionally invest with. Everyone here is miserable and unable to cope with it, and while they do all feel realistic, it's very dark to spend time with them.
Unpleasant though they may be, the characters are richly realized, and Flynn's writing is compelling and vivid. The plot mostly hangs together through its twists and turns...at least, until the end. I'm not going to spoil it, but the ending feels incongruous with the rest of the book, taking a very different tone, and feels very out-of-left-field in a bad way. I'm not big into mystery/thrillers, so I'm not really sure how this fits into it and who exactly Flynn was writing for. It, like Gone Girl, is very interested in exploring female rage, and it feels by virtue of its character development more literary than typical for the genre. But it's also very bleak, with very little humor or lightness to break it up. It's well-constructed and interesting, but was not especially enjoyable for me to read. If what I've written sounds like something you're interested in checking out, I'd recommend it. But if it doesn't sound like it's for you, I assure you this is not a must-read. ( )