Ribbons wrote:Nicely done, Maui; I really want to read this book but there's a couple of other things I'm going to try and get through first.
Maui wrote:Now, what should I start reading? LOTR??? I think that may be my next big reading project.
Ribbons wrote:I'm losing some geek cred with this one, but I never made it all the way through LotR... although I did read all of Two Towers, which I thought was pretty good.
Ribbons wrote:
thomasgaffney wrote:Maui wrote:Now, what should I start reading? LOTR??? I think that may be my next big reading project.Ribbons wrote:I'm losing some geek cred with this one, but I never made it all the way through LotR... although I did read all of Two Towers, which I thought was pretty good.
You're both forever b4nn3d from the book forum...
Maui wrote:thomasgaffney wrote:Maui wrote:Now, what should I start reading? LOTR??? I think that may be my next big reading project.Ribbons wrote:I'm losing some geek cred with this one, but I never made it all the way through LotR... although I did read all of Two Towers, which I thought was pretty good.
You're both forever b4nn3d from the book forum...
What??? I thought we were like the IV to the book forum, huh? huh?
Maui wrote: it’s always enlightening to read about small towns, dysfunctional families and childhood scars. We all have them in some shape or form and we can certainly relate to these stories in some small way.
Dee E. Goppstober wrote:Of course, I am a snobby kid who grew up in kind of a big town, well- kinda anyway- in Amsterdam (waits for joke about pot)
Dee E. Goppstober wrote:
I thought the same. The book made me psycho-analize myself a little. And it did get the eerie feel of the less pleasant childhood memories right.
DaleTremont wrote:Dee E. Goppstober wrote:Of course, I am a snobby kid who grew up in kind of a big town, well- kinda anyway- in Amsterdam (waits for joke about pot)
I went to Amsterdam once...it was AWESOME!
But I digress...
.....
shit. What was I talking about?
Maui wrote: It had a little bit of a vibe of "The Lovely Bones" and "My Little Friend". Two other books that I highly recommend, similar subject matter.
Dee E. Goppstober wrote:Maui wrote: It had a little bit of a vibe of "The Lovely Bones" and "My Little Friend". Two other books that I highly recommend, similar subject matter.
You've got a point about The Lovely Bones (haven't read the other one, whose is it?) - it's the same subject, only that The Lovely Bones has a lot of beauty to it- whereas Sharp Objects insists on showing only the ugliness.
And - 'Young Adults'??. But... I thought I was a young adult??? I feel like a young adult.
It has been a decade since Tartt blazed forth with The Secret History, but it was worth the wait. Set in small-town Mississippi, her new work centers on the family of Harriet Cleve, shattered forever after the murder by hanging of Harriet's nine-year-old brother, Robin, when Harriet was still a baby. Harriet's mother has withdrawn, her father has left town (though he still supports the family), and Harriet and sister Allison are essentially raised by their redoubtable grandmother, Edie, and a gaggle of aunts who, though mostly married, are ultimately "spinsters at heart." Harriet grows up an ornery and precocious child who at age 12 determines that she will finally uncover her brother's murderer. Whether or not she solves the crime is hardly the point; what matters here is the writing-dense, luscious, and exact-and Tartt's ability to reconstruct the life of this family in vivid detail. Harriet in particular is an extraordinary creation; she's a believable child who is also persuasively wise beyond her years. That debut was no fluke; highly recommended.
Dee E. Goppstober wrote:Oh wow- I had forgotten all about Donna Tartt. I did like the Secret History- although I remember my Latin/Greek teacher getting all worked up about the inaccuracies in the book. Cool, thanks.
And- me- definetely just an adult then - without the prefix. Sigh...
DaleTremont wrote:
I'm still on the fence about the whole Mom-Hurts-Kids-To-Take-Care-Of-Them syndrome (and yes, ahem, I did forget the actual term.) That's become a fairly standard TV twist at this point- I'm pretty sure it's been in vogue for a while so it wasn't "shocking." Then again, Flynn seems to kind of scknowledge that ever so slyly. I remember in the beginning Camille mentions something about witness statements mirroring dialogue on Law and Order. To her credit, though, it's really hard to surprise us jaded readers, and in the end I think Sharp Objects was less about the murder mystery and more about dysfunctional family.
DaleTremont wrote:
What I liked about the ending was that SPOILERS!!!! Kansas City Detective doesn't go back to her. Because seriously, if a guy saw a chick was covered in words etched into her skin, no way would he stick around for her "inner beauty." And they don't make a big deal out of it either. It was just kind of off the cuff, he never spoke to her again. That was very anti-Lifetime.
Maui wrote:DaleTremont wrote:
What I liked about the ending was that SPOILERS!!!! Kansas City Detective doesn't go back to her. Because seriously, if a guy saw a chick was covered in words etched into her skin, no way would he stick around for her "inner beauty." And they don't make a big deal out of it either. It was just kind of off the cuff, he never spoke to her again. That was very anti-Lifetime.
That's realistic though. He was always telling her how beautiful she was...blah blah blah - but when he finally saw her etchings on her skin she was no longer beautiful? There clearly wasn't much of a relationship there. They were both using each other: for sex and information. He didn't make a big deal out of it and she just never heard from him again. Did she care - no - she had her inner demons to deal with.
darkjedijaina wrote:Maui wrote:DaleTremont wrote:
What I liked about the ending was that SPOILERS!!!! Kansas City Detective doesn't go back to her. Because seriously, if a guy saw a chick was covered in words etched into her skin, no way would he stick around for her "inner beauty." And they don't make a big deal out of it either. It was just kind of off the cuff, he never spoke to her again. That was very anti-Lifetime.
That's realistic though. He was always telling her how beautiful she was...blah blah blah - but when he finally saw her etchings on her skin she was no longer beautiful? There clearly wasn't much of a relationship there. They were both using each other: for sex and information. He didn't make a big deal out of it and she just never heard from him again. Did she care - no - she had her inner demons to deal with.
I have to say that she probably did care. She said it'd been years since she'd even been with a guy. Certainly, she had her demons to deal with, and that's what makes it even more gut-wrenchingly depressing. The brutal reality is that in the end she's alone and she'll always be alone except for her editor and his wife. The fact that they don't really go into it is what makes it the most disturbing part to me. The fact that it's so final, that there's not even a hint at revisiting it. Perhaps I'm just drawing from real life experiences there, I dunno.
Dee E. Goppstober wrote:I finished it too. Left it at the airport lounge for someone else to pick up - because I think it's well worth a read.
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Flumm wrote: I feel somewhat attatched to the books I read, and often find myself revisiting them (or at least staring at them with a vague sense of achievement), so I haven't tried it myself...
Ribbons wrote:Hoofa! My enthusiasm for reading this book suddenly went down a few pegs.
Care to elaborate as far as the unrealistic thing goes? Stepping on the shoulders of giants here, but Thomas Harris also had a penchant for sexual deviancy/self-mutilation, and his earlier Hannibal novels are considered pretty good examples of the mystery genre.
thomasgaffney wrote:I've read Thomas Harris. And I love Thomas Harris. Although, I hated Hannibal. Seriously, the more Hannibal Lector, the worse the books, IMHO.
Gillian Flynn is no Thomas Harris.
lyra belacqua wrote:But I don't know where you get the connection between Flynn and Harris. I don't remember their writing as being anything close to one another. Or is it just topic wise? Or am I missing something? Because, let me tell you, I miss shit all the time.
Ribbons wrote:lyra belacqua wrote:But I don't know where you get the connection between Flynn and Harris. I don't remember their writing as being anything close to one another. Or is it just topic wise? Or am I missing something? Because, let me tell you, I miss shit all the time.
I gotta own up to that one. I sort of prompted gaffney to compare the two in order to better understand what he meant when he said the book was over-the-top; whether it was the macabre aspects, the characterisation, or other details.
Ribbons wrote:Hey, she met *most* of her deadlines...
TheBaxter wrote:Sharp Objects, AKA The Cure for Insomnia
man this show is sooooooooooooo sloooooooooooooooowwwwwwww
i guess that's what happens when you fluff up a 250 page book that barely has a plot to begin with into an 8-hour "limited series". this book probably would've been fine as a 2-hour film, but there's just not enough there to fill out 8 hours. so then you have to bring in all this extra crap, i mean, WTF was up with that "Calhoun Day" BS anyway? it was like a parody of the south, and this show doesn't even take place in the south.
the acting is fine. amy adams is alright, though i kind of wish they'd switched the casting between this and Dark Places. charlize theron was horribly miscast as a short frumpy redhead in that film, and amy adams probably would've been a better fit for that character. whereas camille in the book is supposed to be practically a model, and i don't think amy adams has that kind of beauty. charlize theron fits that description better; cast sharon stone as adora and they would've made an ideal mother-daughter pair.
caruso_stalker217 wrote:Well, Missouri also has Branson, which is country as hell and the number one vacation destination for people who fucking hate themselves or are, like, ninety.
TheBaxter wrote:with this now being an HBO series, i wanted to read the book first because books are always better. i've read Flynn's other two books (Dark Places and Gone Girl)... GG was brilliant, but DP was very disappointing. i would say SO falls somewhere between.
it's a short read, about 250 pages. and i rarely say this, but i think it should have been longer. my main problem with the book is the end, and specifically, how rushed and tacked on it felt. there's a small twist that comes towards the end, and then a bigger twist in the final chapter. but that final twist is presented almost in a summary-like manner (think the end of Psycho, except instead of seeing Norman in a dress with a knife, you only hear about it as part of the doctor's spiel at the end explaining Norman's psychosis). it easily could have been expanded into a scene, or a few scenes, to set it up and make that twist more dramatic. it isn't a bad twist, just a lost opportunity.
it's interesting, both this and DP seemed to feel like the author got to the end and felt the need to suddenly wrap things up, though it plays out differently in each book. in DP, it comes in the form of a series of ridiculously convenient coincidences, whereas in SO it's more just a rushed final few pages that should have been fleshed out more. SO is definitely better than DP though, including everything that leads up to the end as well... DP probably has more plot though, SO is almost more of a character study of the narrator and her family. but it's overall more interesting and there was a lot of stuff in DP that felt unnecessary and even dull.
hopefully, Gone Girl was a sign that the shortcomings of these earlier novels have been dealt with and Flynn's future books won't suffer the same problems with disappointing endings. otherwise she may get a reputation as the female Stephen King.
ETA: congrats to whoever rememebered this 10-year-old thread and moved my post here
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