Libby Day lives her
post-family-murder life for nothing. Forever unconcerned with whatever life
throws at her, she could care less about what happens to her already destroyed
self. She thought about and tried suicide a hundred times but never got around
to truly ending what’s left of her. She’s alive but running out of money to
survive, so she finds a new way to earn using her family’s murder’s through a
group of people who take interest in the mystery of who murdered her mother and
siblings. While in search for past suspects whose names came up during the past
investigations, she finds herself facing new realizations about his convicted
brother, Ben Day, and new angles as to who might actually did the murder.
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 Day
With a plot
centering on murder and Satanism, Dark
Places’ theme is as dark as it could get. Every chapter makes me play an
eerie scenario in my head. But more than the visual brutalities, I see violence
in the characters’ broken souls and minds. I see it in the way they think, the
way they act or in the way they don’t, and it’s far more disturbing.
I got hooked even
when the intensity wasn’t that much, as it was scattered here and there,
revealing itself only little by little and in an unproblematic narration while
building up to the big reveal. It’s slow-paced, very, the storytelling taking
its time, but it got to me and kept my interest going with the end of every
chapter always leaving a simple yet intriguing statement every time.
Flynn’s approach in
using multiple perspectives and time periods, as she did with this one, is a
very effective and engaging writing style, as it keeps me drawn deeper into her
story. Dark Places is strategically exciting in a way that the story
unfolds through the overlapping and meeting of different characters’
storytelling at different times. I was never confused; I never felt overworked
while reading. Everything fell into place seamlessly.
I felt something loosen in me, that
shouldn’t have loosened. A stitch come undone. – Libby Day
Dark Places has that Gillian
Flynn signature with its ring of unusual truth and brutal reality which I truly
admire. In general, Flynn’s stories are always too real that they tend to be
scary to read.
Based on her novels
that I’ve read, Gillian Flynn is not an idealist. She knows how to point out
the truth behind the possibilities of every unusual thing happening, that
sometimes people think people can’t do certain things even when they actually
can because these things are in their nature, that sometimes people are just
really harsh, that sometimes justice can’t be served and people don’t always
get what they deserve, and that all people can do is accept all these things
and carry on with their lives. These are things I as a reader ponder on every
time I open a Flynn novel, and I love that she makes me think about all these
because very few authors get to me like that.
Needless to say, I
really enjoyed this book because it’s just so twisted. I mean, not as much as I
enjoyed Gone Girl because I believe
that to be her best brainchild yet, but it still has all the elements that made
me read and think about it nonstop.
The trend that it is
today, Dark Places is already set for its movie adaptation come 2015. No
surprise there anymore but that’s still something worth looking forward to,
right? J
Are you done reading
this book? Share your thoughts!
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