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Dark Places
I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.
Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in "The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas." As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived-and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben
...moreHardcover, Large Print, 615 pages
Published
August 5th 2009
by Wheeler Publishing
(first published January 1st 2009)
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As someone who grew up in rural Kansas and has lived in the suburbs of Kansas City for the last fourteen years, I made my peace long ago with the fact that I don’t live in one of the hip places on the map. The only Kansas based things that have worked their way into popular culture are In Cold Blood and that goddamn Wizard of Oz. (As a Kansan, I listen to everyone I’ve met from somewhere else do the “I guess you’re not in Kansas anymore! Ha ha!” thing and can barely resist the urge to punch th...more
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Seriously, what goes on in Gillian Flynn's head? She writes the freakiest stuff. Sharp Objects was nasty enough, and Dark Places is just as vile. Luckily for her, I (along with millions of people) like vile now and then.
Libby Day is a sole survivor of a horrendous massacre. Her mother and two sisters were brutally killed one winter night and, mostly thanks to Libby's testimony, the murders were attributed to Libby's older brother Ben, an alleged active Satan worshiper. Now, almost 25...more
Libby Day is a sole survivor of a horrendous massacre. Her mother and two sisters were brutally killed one winter night and, mostly thanks to Libby's testimony, the murders were attributed to Libby's older brother Ben, an alleged active Satan worshiper. Now, almost 25...more
Well. I can't really say that I liked this book. None of the characters are likable, including the main character. Libby Day's family was killed by her brother when she was 7. By the time she hits 30, she's still 7 inside, her inner growth stunted by the tragedy. She can barely take care of herself, has never had a job, and suddenly the money that strangers donated out of charity over the years is down to about $900. To replenish her bank account, Libby grudgingly agrees to pimp herself out to a...more
Gillian Flynn's first novel, Sharp Objects, was interestingly disturbing; in fact, it walked a razor-thin line between "Huh, you certainly don't read that every day" and "Gillian Flynn has some serrrriiiious issues and I'm a little bit afraid of her". I wasn't sure whether I respected her extremely dark side or her dark side is so dark it makes her books kind of uncomfortable to read.
Strangely enough (once you know the story outline) Dark Places actually has a more...more
Strangely enough (once you know the story outline) Dark Places actually has a more...more
Liberty
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
those who like a twisted, suspensful story
Recommended to Liberty by:
Novel Ladies 5 Star Nomination
Shelves:
genre-mystery
This was my first book by Gillian Flynn and it will not be my last.
Gillian Flynn is a masterful writer who can take an idea and twist and turn it into a dark intense story that you cannot put down-not even if you wanted to. Dark Places had me hooked at the beginning and breathless at the end.
Dark Places tells the story from the perspective of three individuals-Patty Day and two of her children, Ben and Libby. The Day family was massacred at their Kansas farm, the only survivor...more
Gillian Flynn is a masterful writer who can take an idea and twist and turn it into a dark intense story that you cannot put down-not even if you wanted to. Dark Places had me hooked at the beginning and breathless at the end.
Dark Places tells the story from the perspective of three individuals-Patty Day and two of her children, Ben and Libby. The Day family was massacred at their Kansas farm, the only survivor...more
If you are the kind of person who likes books where some people are killed and there is confusion over who did it, and through the course of the book complexities and resolutions happen then you just might like this book.
I don't know if I would call this a mystery, yes there is death and there is the question of, well who did it? But to me mystery's are usually kind of bland and episodic and generally not really that interesting outside of the idea of who did what (I love making s...more
I don't know if I would call this a mystery, yes there is death and there is the question of, well who did it? But to me mystery's are usually kind of bland and episodic and generally not really that interesting outside of the idea of who did what (I love making s...more
I loved Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects. This novel was also amazingly written and makes it clear that SO was by no means a fluke or a one-time thing for this writer. The rhyme presented before this novel's beginning is so creepy that there are some who will likely read the first few pages in the bookstore and put the book right back on the shelf because of that alone. And if you are easily creeped out, putting the book back would be a smart idea. For everyone else, this novel is another must-...more
This had the tightest You Must Keep Reading stranglehold on me since I read "The Ruins" a year ago. Although I liked the main character from Flynn's first book, "Sharp Objects" more (both are psychologically disturbed 30ish single women), the murder mystery in "Dark Places" was more gripping and unfolded in such an interesting way, as present-day Libby digs into her family's murder while the events are illuminated in corresponding flashbacks featuring her now-dead ...more
This is an amazing novel. Black and depressing, with a main character that's both pathetic and disgusting, but likable at the same time. Meloncholy, ironic, dark and wonderful.
Devil worship in the 1980’s! Back then, I was a rebellious Catholic school student who read a lot of horror paperbacks, listened to Metallica and dated leather jacket wearing, cigarette smoking public school boys (gasp!) Ah, those were the days =) Gillian Flynn includes tons of eighties details such as scrunching a spiral perm with mouse and rolling up your baggy pants legs a few inches to show off socks that match your shirt. In fact, Flynn is good with all of the details of the story. So much...more
Let me start this by saying I never write reviews, but I just had to for this one. I really enjoyed Gillian Flynn's first book, Sharp Objects. So when I decided I was in the mood for a good mystery, one that grabs you and doesn't let you go till the very end, I was fortunate in remembering that she had just come out with a new book. Let me tell you, this book did exactly what I was hoping for and more. The story centers on Libby Day, a broken woman who suffered an unthinkable tragedy when she...more
I just finished this book last night. It was so much better than her first book SHARP OBJECTS. This book had 3 points (Libby, Ben, and Patty) of view and I like that the author did such a good job of allowing the main character, Libby, to speak her mind and share her real feelings. Not everything in life is roses and butterflies and all squishy and soft feeling. Libby has issues and I felt that I could totally relate to her rage and her anger. Perhaps this book should have been called HARD PLACE...more
“I was not a lovable child, and I’d grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs”.
“I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it. It’s the Day blood. Something’s wrong with it. I was never a good little girl, and I got worse after the murders”.
When Libby Day was just 7 years old, she survived a massacre that too...more
“I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it. It’s the Day blood. Something’s wrong with it. I was never a good little girl, and I got worse after the murders”.
When Libby Day was just 7 years old, she survived a massacre that too...more
Great mystery, good for fans of literary mysteries like Laura Lippman's. Libby Day's family was murdered when she was seven, and her 15-year-old brother went to prison for the crime in large part due to Libby's testimony against him. Now, Libby is 31, still suffering from the effects of the murders, and the trust fund set up for her after the murders has just about run out. She's contacted by a member of a local true-crime club, the "Kill Club", and out of desperation agrees to visit t...more
Gillian Flynn does it again! "Dark Places" is much like her previous book, debut novel "Sharp Objects" -- a story/journey of an anti-heroine with a mystery as the backdrop. And Flynn's writing is the same clean, clever, and sometimes poetic, prose of that in "Sharp Objects." But "Dark Places" is, well, darker. Much darker. However, I'd argue it's a more ambitious work and more artfully done than "Sharp Objects." The only thing I was sad about as ...more
Couldn't put this book down from the first sentence. She really grabs you and keeps you in. You want to hate the main character, Libby, but you also feel sorry for her. The way she moves back and forth between the past and present was brilliant done to unravel the mystery of what happened the night Libby's family died. Just brilliantly beautifully written.
Libby Day is a survivor, a professional victim, and not a very nice person. For her entire adult life Libby has lived off a victim's trust fund established by well-wishers across the country, after the brutal massacre of her entire family. The bloody slaying of Libby's mother and two sisters happened when she was seven, at the hands of her fifteen year old brother Ben. Or so she testified in his trial, and so she has believed in the intervening 24 years. Recently, however, she's begun to doubt t...more
Good summer read. I thought Ms. Flynn did an excellent job of building suspense while moving between her several narrators. Looking forward to her next book.
Normally, it is usualy hard to sympathize with a flawed character, especially when the character is looking to take advantage of the tragedy of her disfunctional family's slaughter, and her status as a victim. But Gillian Flynn painted her in great details, going back and forth from the narrator Libby Day 's childhood, to present, bringing forth her innocence and the horrifying circumstances of witnessing through sounds, of her entire family being murdured and seeing the aftermath. The ending wa...more
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It’s been a long time since the first two lines of a novel have grabbed me like these did:
I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.
Libby is not an easy character to like. I don’t think she’s as mean as she portends to be, but at age 32 she’s completely incapable of taking care of herself, expecting to live forever on the kindness of strangers, either through their...more
I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.
Libby is not an easy character to like. I don’t think she’s as mean as she portends to be, but at age 32 she’s completely incapable of taking care of herself, expecting to live forever on the kindness of strangers, either through their...more
Gillian Flynn's first novel, "Sharp Objects", was well-received by critics and short-listed for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
With her second effort, "Dark Places", she may have surpassed the expectations set by her first novel. Libby Day is a 31 year-old woman and the lone survivor of a family massacre when she was 7. At that event, labeled The Satan Sacrafice of Kinnakee, her mother and two older sisters were brutally murdered and her 15 year-old brother...more
With her second effort, "Dark Places", she may have surpassed the expectations set by her first novel. Libby Day is a 31 year-old woman and the lone survivor of a family massacre when she was 7. At that event, labeled The Satan Sacrafice of Kinnakee, her mother and two older sisters were brutally murdered and her 15 year-old brother...more
For 25 years, Libby Day has avoided revisiting her memories of the horrendous night in which she heard someone murder her mother and sisters. It was her own testimony, as a 5 year old, that sent her older brother to prison for life. Now Libby is barely functioning as an independent adult. She desperately needs money, and agrees to consult with a club of murder groupies who believe her brother is innocent. It isn't long before everything she is forced to re-examine everything she knows is true. A...more
I read Sharp Objects a few years ago, was freaked out by it, and yet couldn't put it down until I finished. I was really excited when I found out Gillian Flynn had another creeper coming out...
I finished reading Dark Places last night, and am still thinking about it this morning. For a large part of the book, engrossing as it was, I felt it would have a dead end, leaving off in a place as dark and unsettling as where it began. But Gillian Flynn is a super-talented writer, and she not...more
I finished reading Dark Places last night, and am still thinking about it this morning. For a large part of the book, engrossing as it was, I felt it would have a dead end, leaving off in a place as dark and unsettling as where it began. But Gillian Flynn is a super-talented writer, and she not...more
This book is not from around the world. I have warned you it is from somewhere flat in the middle of the country somewhere. Missouri perhaps. However, america is in the world, and I said one book from every country so America gets this book.
I like this book it feels well written, although that could just be the plot. I'm not sure I particularly like the resolution, but perhaps I do. I will not know until it resides in my head for a time.
I have her other book on hold at ...more
I like this book it feels well written, although that could just be the plot. I'm not sure I particularly like the resolution, but perhaps I do. I will not know until it resides in my head for a time.
I have her other book on hold at ...more
"Dark Places" by Gillian Flynn is a masterfully written thriller/mystery. Libby's quirky character is one that won't soon be forgotten.
The story flashes from present to past in alternating chapters, counterbalancing Libby's search for the truth with the tragedy of the past. On a snowy night in 1985, then 7-year-old Libby Day hears her mother and two young sisters dying being murdered, assuming it was her teenage brother Ben weilding the axe and shotgun. Now, after being ...more
The story flashes from present to past in alternating chapters, counterbalancing Libby's search for the truth with the tragedy of the past. On a snowy night in 1985, then 7-year-old Libby Day hears her mother and two young sisters dying being murdered, assuming it was her teenage brother Ben weilding the axe and shotgun. Now, after being ...more
Gillian Flynn has a genius for writing compelling stories about repellent characters.
As in her previous novel, Sharp Objects, an Edgar Award finalist, Dark Pleaces focuses on a deeply flawed protagonist, who over the course of the novel, wins some measure of reader sympathy if not empathy.
Told alternatively in Libby Day's current search for the killer of her family, which occurred when she was a child, and flashbacks to the events leading up to this horrific event, Dark Places mesmer...more
As in her previous novel, Sharp Objects, an Edgar Award finalist, Dark Pleaces focuses on a deeply flawed protagonist, who over the course of the novel, wins some measure of reader sympathy if not empathy.
Told alternatively in Libby Day's current search for the killer of her family, which occurred when she was a child, and flashbacks to the events leading up to this horrific event, Dark Places mesmer...more
Normally, I don't touch books like this, not being the type of reader who likes gore or mysteries...or thrillers, for that matter. But, I was intrigued enough by the querkiness of the characters to make it to the end. The author is skilled at characterization and setting and tells a pretty darn good yarn that keeps one guessing. A few times, I thought I'd figured it out, but turns out, I was wrong. I'd recommend this to readers who enjoy books on the dark side and don't mind graphic violence.
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Wow.
This is all I can say.
Wow.
This book was fantastic. If you want a mystery that you can't see the ending coming, this one if for you.
It is very dark and grisly at times but I could not put the book down.
It is the story of Libby Day, whose two sisters and mother were murdered 24 years ago by her brother. Libby was in the house at the time and managed to escape. Years later she begins to question if the murder was indeed committed ...more
This is all I can say.
Wow.
This book was fantastic. If you want a mystery that you can't see the ending coming, this one if for you.
It is very dark and grisly at times but I could not put the book down.
It is the story of Libby Day, whose two sisters and mother were murdered 24 years ago by her brother. Libby was in the house at the time and managed to escape. Years later she begins to question if the murder was indeed committed ...more
Richard
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Sane people. Really sane people. Fans of John Connolly.
I was given a proof copy of this book at the last meeting of Heffer's Crime Crackers, the reading group I belong to. The story is very dark indeed, with no really attractive characters. I said in my Amazon review that you shouldn't read it unless you had easy access to your own happy place and I stand by that assessment. It is well-written, interestingly constructed and has a very unexpected twist in the tail. If you can't get hold of a proof, wait for the publication in May and buy it then esp...more
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Gillian Flynn is an American author and television critic for Entertainment Weekly. She has so far written two novels, Sharp Objects, for which she won the 2007 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the best thriller; and her second book, Dark Places
Her book has received wide praise, including from authors such as Stephen King. The dark plot revolves around a serial killer in a Missouri town, a...more
More about Gillian Flynn...
Her book has received wide praise, including from authors such as Stephen King. The dark plot revolves around a serial killer in a Missouri town, a...more
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“I was not a lovable child, and I'd grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble with fangs.”
—
32 people liked it
“I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.”
—
9 people liked it
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