Book Review: "Dark Places" By Gillian Flynn

By Christina Oehler on April 6, 2015

After seeing Gillian Flynn’s, “Gone Girl” made into a movie, I decided to use up the rest of an old, iTunes gift card to buy her second novel, “Dark Places,” on iBook. Unfortunately, due to my outdated iPhone 4 and technology issues, I was confined to squinting at the tiny print on my phone when reading. Despite this minor flaw, “Dark Places” was an incredible read.

As a murder mystery that will be coming out in theaters later this year, “Dark Places” was a gruesome, horrifying story where words leapt off the page and churned your stomach as you read them. The level of detail Flynn is able to capture with her gory diction is incredible, and literally made it hard for me to turn off the lights (granted, I’m kind of a baby when it comes to scary things, but it was still horrifying).

The story follows the life of Libby Day, a 30-year-old woman whose mother and two sisters were allegedly murdered by her brother, Ben Day, when she was only seven. After spending the past twenty some years trying to forget the horrific sight of her family’s dismembered body parts, Libby is sought out by a group that wants her to do just the opposite: dig into her past and solve her family’s murders.

The story switches between Libby’s current quest to discover the true murder of her family members and the January day in 1985 leading up to the murders, slowly revealing the dark truths about Libby’s family.

Between her abusive father, a satan-worshiping brother and bankrupt mother, Libby’s current life becomes unwoven as she delves further into the twisted secrets of her past.

This is probably one of the first times in years that I have actually read a book before it has come out in theaters, which makes me even more excited for Charlize Theron’s leading role in this film. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loved “Gone Girl” and other murder mysteries. However, this book is not for the faint of heart.

Photo Via: //d3ak921qm2mtuo.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Screen-Shot-2015-04-05-at-10.57.53-PM.png

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