I love being at home. My favorite reading spot is easily the screened-in porch. It’s beautiful and warm and the noises of all the birds and animals in my backyard bring me peace. After finishing my last book, I felt like I needed a break from reading. So when I came home, I didn’t bring any of my books. Yesterday, my mom pulled out this Gillian Flynn novel and told me how interesting it was. So I started to read it and I was hooked. I spent the entire day reading.

The story is told from the perspective of Camille Preaker. She is a reporter and her newspaper is floundering due to competition. Her boss, Curry sends her back to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri to investigate the murder of Ann Nash. While Camille’s there, another girl named Natalie Keene is also killed similar to Nash. Camille is staying with her mother Adora and she meets her half-sister Amma. Camille needs to write a crucial story for her paper while discovering what’s really going on in Wind Gap.

*Spoilers*

CW: Self Harm, Drug Use.

There was a lot that annoyed me about Camille. First, when she talks to detective Richard Willis she mentions how if a woman is drunk, it’s her fault and it’s not rape. She goes on to state how she thinks that it isn’t a crime to have sex with someone who is drunk. That really annoyed me because I completely disagree with her. That is sexual assault because she was not sober enough to definitely say she wanted to have sex. Camille also does drugs with her half-sister Amma who is only thirteen. You’re thirty years old and you want to do drugs with your thirteen-year-old sister? That part really angered me.

Amma is also not very likable. She’s mean to a lot of the girls in her school just for being different. She is doing drugs, drinking alcohol, and having sex at thirteen years old. She knows how pretty she is and she uses that to her advantage.

Adora is also an interesting character. She constantly tells Camille how much she doesn’t love her, but when Camille is sick, she is a motherly figure. It’s revealed that Adora has Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Adora poisons her daughter Camille just so she gets attention and feels needed by her daughters. At the end of the book, she’s arrested so that’s a relief.

I was also disappointed in Richard Willis, the detective from St. Louis. He sleeps with Camille to get more information about her mother. Then he claims to love her and when he sees Camille’s scars for the first time, he leaves and never talks to her again. I just want to slap him.

This novel is fast-paced and the writing itself is really interesting. If you’re looking for a gothic, modern, and dark novel to read, this is definitely a book you should finish. It’s relatively short so finishing it in a day is to be expected.