If you had the pleasure of reading Gone Girl (which, if you haven't, you really should stop reading this right now and go pick that up) you know how great a gruesome mystery novel can be. Riddled with great plot elements, crazy characters, and a side of yuckiness that worked perfectly together, it was a great novel. I think Flynn tried to do the same with this book, but it just didn't work as well. (Side note: this actually came first so I probably shouldn't compare them that way; maybe this book helped her get to Gone Girl :) ).
Basic plot -- newspaper writer who follows the crime beat, goes back to small town in Missouri she grew up in to cover the story of two murders of young kids. Shocking, she gets woven into the craziness of the town and has something to do with the killer/killings. So, not a bad set up, but we have some problems.
Problems:
1. I never bought into the character as she just never seemed real to me.
2. Some of the story lines were so ridiculous especially those of her 13 year old sister and crazy mother
3. I never bought into some of the workings of the police and cops
4. There was minimal action and the "mystery" was so slow to develop
5. Some of it was just gross
There were some good parts though. It WAS fairly entertaining and an easy read. It had a lot of dialogue, which I like and the story was pretty scary so it kept me interested for the most part (just slow).
Overall, do yourself a favor and check out Gone Girl if you haven't yet. If you love it, and are okay with a second best novel with similar theme and set up, then read Sharp Objects, otherwise, I say it's a skip.
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