Sharp Objects

by Gillian Flynn

There was just me, left wretched in my childhood bed.

I hated being in Wind Gap, but home held no comfort either.

There was nothing I wanted to do more than be unconscious again, wrapped in black, gone away. I was raw. I felt swollen with potential tears, like a water balloon filled to burst. Begging for a pin prick. Wind Gap was unhealthy for me. This home was unhealthy for me.

The problem started long before that, of course. Problems always start long before you really, really see them.

Every tragedy that happens in the world happens to my mother, and this more than anything about her turns my stomach.

It’s all too much for her, the cruelty of human beings.

A town so suffocating and small, you tripped over people you hated every day.

She wants all relationships in the house to run through her.

“I just think some women aren’t made to be mothers. And some women aren’t made to be daughters.”

A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.