Book review: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Dark Places

Written by: Gillian Flynn

Published: 2009

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 realise 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?
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“Coffee goes great with sudden death.”

When I read Gone Girl I was a little disappointed, but that was pretty much guaranteed given how much that book was raved about. I didn't hate it, I just wasn't wowed by it. So when I heard whisperings from people about Flynn's other books I was hesitant. On the one hand I had heard basically nothing about them (a marked difference from Gone Girl) which is definitely the way to go into these books, but on the other hand - do I really want to read another Gillian Flynn? 

I'm not sure what made me decide to spontaneously buy a copy of this the other day. I must have seen it mentioned on a blog or on facebook and the seed was subconsciously planted. But bought it I did, and read it I did. And I enjoyed it immensely. As seems to be my want at the moment, I keep reading books that are terrible for review content. Like Gone Girl this is a book that benefits from going into it with a fairly open mind, untarnished by reviews and discussions. But unlike Gone Girl it doesn't really have that same reliance on twists. I don't want this to be a review that's simply "this is why it's better than Gone Girl" but there are two points I want to make about why it is better than Gone Girl. Possible minor spoilers for Gone Girl up ahead. 

1. Lack of twists/insane red herrings.  

As a thriller/mystery obviously there are still a certain about of red herrings and twists in the book, but it doesn't rely on them. Instead it's a bit more of a hidden narrative, slowly uncovering new details with each chapter. The chapters alternate between a present-day account from Libby as she pokes into the case that destroyed her life and perspectives from the day leading up to the murders from both her mother and Ben's POV. The parallel narratives help to slowly build the complete picture, but the varying perspectives also mean there's plenty of opportunity for people to read into things wrong or jump to conclusions. So even though you think you've worked out a link between two people or have begun to tunnel towards the truth of the murders, the next chapter will offer another perspective which presents the same situation in an entirely new light. So it's a little red herring-y, but I felt like it was analogous to real life, the whole "there's two sides to every story" shtick.  

2. The characters 

It was only when I read this book that I was able to finally put my finger on one of my biggest problems with Gone Girl. I know everyone loves to talk about how they're both these dispicable loathesome characters that you love to hate, but I just hated them. I love a good villain and I love an anti-hero, but Nick and Amy just annoyed me. The characters in Dark Places helped me finally work out why. Gone Girl is a story of two bored middle-class adults who are unhappy in their marriage. They treat each other like garbage for no reason other than they are too lazy to divorce and start again. I never understood why they did what they did, and "they're bad people" just felt lazy. On the flipside, all of the characters in Dark Places are terrible people (on varying levels) but I felt like ther was weight to their terribleness. Libby is a thief and a liar, she's lazy, antagonistic and dismissive. Her dad is an absolute monster, a lying, thieving, drug-addicted asshole who manipulates and antagonises everyone he meets. Her brother is obnoxious and her mother is so weak willed at times I couldn't stand it. But they aren't just horrible people in a vaccum. Libby might have been a jerk and a thief even if her family had lived, but witnessing their murders (and living) has a massive impact on her personality. Her mother was pregnant at 17 and struggled to manage a failing farm, four children and an abusive husband (when he was around) - her frustration and exhaustion is entirely understandable. Ben was 15. 15 year olds suck. Now, I'm not saying that the only people who get to be assholes are people who have had a tough life but their behaviour and attitude just felt more believable and relatable than Amy and Nick in Gone Girl.

So overall I give this book a big thumbs up. I found the ending really tidy (too tidy - people who have read this, let me know what you thought in the comments) but ultimately satisfying. I'm really glad I bought this as an ebook, it makes my terrible habit of flipping towards the back of the book much harder. Even if the ending was a little clean, it's still the kind of ending you want to discover at the end of the book. If you liked Gone Girl, I'm sure you'll like this one too. If you, like me, didn't particularly love Gone Girl I'd recommend it even more. The story, like all Gillian Flynn, is absurd and soap opera-y but that's what makes it such a page turner and once I started this book, I barely put it down. 

Book Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl

Written by: Gillian Flynn

Published: 2012

Synopsis: On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn't do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

Challenges: Romantic/Suspense for Book'd Out's Eclectic Reader Challenge
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I was so careful about reading reviews for this book. I avoided reading anything beyond "i liked it" "I didn't like it", but even so I knew that this was a book full of twists and turns and "OMG YOU WON'T SEE IT COMING". And that was a problem, a really big problem, because I was always on the defence, never trusting the characters or any of the narration and waiting, always waiting, for the big shocks that were supposed to throw me backwards off my chair. And ultimately this left me feeling pretty meh about the book.

You see, with a book like this you really need to know nothing about it. Even knowing that there are twists is sufficient to put you on guard enough that you refuse to take anything at face value, and this book desperately needs you to take it at face value for it to work. You need to go into it believing everything you're reading, not questioning it and looking for the red herrings. Yes you might know it's a thriller, but if it wasn't for the myriad of professional and blogger reviews excitedly proclaiming the multiple twists the first half of the narrative would leave you thinking it was a very traditional whodunnit.

Once I got past the fact that it wasn't going to have the desired effect on me (silly me waiting a year to read a book this popular!), I actually began to enjoy the perversity of the story and enjoy the twists not for being startling but for what they added to the characters and narrative. Gillian Flynn really pushes the envelope, and while I don't think she's always successful, the direction she takes the story is rather brilliantly dark.

That said I did find the first half of the book incredibly slow going, revisiting a lot of standard thriller/missing wife tropes and full of overly flowery and ultimately useless language. Case in point this line from page 79, part of an old diary entry from Amy;

"Nick got home just after four, a bulb of beer and cigarettes and fried-egg odor attached to him, a placenta of stink"

Whenever I came across a line like this I just wanted to grab Flynn by the shoulders and scream REALLY? Considering both narrators (alternating between Nick and diary entries from Amy) are supposed to be writers and one is a journalist no less, the adjective-per-sentence rate is atrocious. Everything gets into a better rhythm by the halfway point, the writing tightens up and the pace quickens, but there are times in that first half which are really difficult to get through.

So all in all, this book is a bit of a mixed bag. By now if you haven't read it, it'll basically be something of a let-down no matter how determined you were to remain unspoiled - but that doesn't mean it isn't worth a read, or that you won't ultimately end up enjoying it. Just know that at this stage the popularity of the book will tarnish any opportunity to come at it with clear eyes, don't expect too much, don't set too much by the twists and just sit back and enjoy the soap opera madness.