"Dark Places" by Gillian Flynn is a gripping thriller that follows Libby Day, the sole survivor of a family massacre. The story unfolds through multiple perspectives and timelines, delving into the dark and twisted events surrounding the murders. Flynn's writing style captivates readers with its suspenseful and haunting narrative, keeping them on the edge of their seats as they uncover the chilling truths hidden within the characters' pasts.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Triggers may include graphic violence, murder, childhood trauma, mental illness, and depictions of abuse.
From The Publisher:
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
Ratings (196)
Incredible (20) | |
Loved It (89) | |
Liked It (59) | |
It Was OK (18) | |
Did Not Like (8) | |
Hated It (2) |
Reader Stats (339):
Read It (201) | |
Currently Reading (1) | |
Want To Read (96) | |
Did Not Finish (5) | |
Not Interested (36) |
3 comment(s)
"I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me open and it might slide out..." Here is the first of many dark places in this book: the inside of Libby's body. Bodies are important in this text, and not just because it is about an infamous massacre. When Libby was seven, her mother and two older sisters were murdered, and she escaped out a window in the back of the house. Libby testifies that she saw her older brother Ben kill them, and he is sentenced to life in prison. All of this happens during the mid-80s, also known as the height of the Satanic Scare. Ben was labeled a satanic butcher before he even got to trial and had no chance of being acquitted.
But Libby didn't see anything; she only heard the murders, and 24 years later she is running out of money, depressed (although she doesn't admit it), with no connections, and afraid to even think about darkplace, her name for her memory of that night. When a club of true crime enthusiasts and those weird women who write to prisoners for romance contact her, she thinks she can milk them for money each time she contacts someone involved in the case.
I love the way Flynn structured this book. Chapters alternate between Libby's current investigation with Patty (mom) and Ben (brother)'s activities the day before the murder. As Libby talks to the obvious players (her brother, her deadbeat dad), she uncovers more layers to what went on that day. The tension ratchets up concurrently as we watch Patty and Ben spiraling towards an inevitably unhappy ending.
Libby, who has never come to terms with the murders and her role in the aftermath, is stuck in childhood. We see this in her body: under five feet tall with double D breasts, she is somewhere between a child and a woman even at 32 years old. Patty is 32 when she is murdered, and her struggles to maintain the family farm in a dying industry while raising four children in grinding poverty are displayed with shocking starkness. At one point she thinks that she feels sorry for her kids because they are on the free lunch program, "but not in a way that made her want to help, just in a way that made her not want to look at them anymore." She loves her children, but hates being reminded of her failure to care for them properly.
The solution to the puzzle is shocking, but it almost isn't as important as watching the players move into position. Patty feels there is no way to escape her dilemma. Ben lacks a father figure and rages with the hormones of a 15 year old boy whose "friends" are always needling him about his poverty. The three daughters are not exactly adorable cherubs, either. By the time we get to the end, the violence seems inevitable.
You can probably tell I loved this book. Not as much as
Sharp Objects, but I sure have a lot to say about it. Highly recommended.
pretty intense and interesting, reads easy, catching, finished book in one day
i really enjoyed this ! it felt like a heavy, slow air . like death crawled through the pages, so real .
What can you read after
Dark Places?
About the Author:
Gillian Flynn is the author of the runaway hit Gone Girl, an international sensation that has spent more than 95 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her work has been published in 40 languages. Gone Girl is a major motion picture from Twentieth Century-Fox. Flynn's previous…
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