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Book Review: Dark Places

Another Gillian Flynn novel that I really enjoyed greatly.  Compared to Gone Girl and Sharp Objects it felt…gentler somehow, but it was definitely on the dark side again. 

The story is split into two parts, with chapters alternating between Libby Day in the present time and her mother Patty and her brother Ben on January 2, 1985.  In the night from January 2 to 3, someone killed all members of the Day family in a massacre, with only 7-year old Libby able to escape the murders.  Her 15-year old brother Ben was arrested for the crime, mostly because of Libby’s testimony. 

In present time, Libby lives from day to day, aimless, the perpetual victim, living off the royalties of being a survivor.  This changes when the Kill Club enters her life, offering her money to speak about the massacre.  The Kill Club believes that Ben is innocent and want to find out the truth.  In flashbacks we learn more about the past.  By the end of the book, chapters get ever shorter, the pacing more frantic, as both Libby learns about how the murders happened, and the reader witnesses the crime through the eyes of the other Days. 

The twist at the end was not fully surprising, but it was exciting nonetheless, and once again Gillian Flynn shows the ugly sides of small-town America, dealing with subjects such as satanism craze in the 80s, drugs, child abuse and of course murder. 

Libby is a very interesting character.  Like most characters in Gillian Flynn books, she’s not fully likeable.  She lies, she steals and she procrastinates.  But there’s a good side in her, and there was a point I was even moved to tears. 

My rating: (4.5 / 5)Highly enjoyable. 

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I really liked Dark Places, though not quite as much as Gone Girl.  I still have Sharp Objects on my Kindle waiting to be read – I’m sad that Flynn only has three books out.  I’ve been putting off reading the last one because I really enjoy her books and don’t want to be done with them.