I was sent this book for the Birchbox Book Club. All opinions are mine alone
This book is a departure from what I read last week. Last week was all girly and fluff, and this week? I read Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places.
I am a huge fan of Gone Girl (although I haven’t watched the movie yet). And I have the hunch that I am going to love everything that Gillian Flynn writes. Spoiler alert: she’s only written one other book and I’m already reading it. And I’m hooked.
Okay.
So, Dark Places is about Libby Day. When Libby was 7 years old, her brother Ben murdered her mother and two sisters. The murders rocked her small town. The book starts when Libby is 30-ish and living alone, and her brother Ben is still in jail. The money she’d been living off for years has run out and she has to find a job. At that point, she’s introduced to a guy named Lyle. Lyle approaches her about meeting The Kill Club, a group he’s a part of that discusses real murder cases.
Most of the people in the group are nuts, but there is a sub group within the club that wants to get Ben Day out of jail. They believe he’s innocent, and they want Libby to recant her testimony. Libby seizes the opportunity. She has connections to people involved in the murders, and the group wants her to investigate the case. They pay her for every person she finds, and she brings the information back to them.
Now, Libby is not convinced that Ben is innocent. She was 7, the murders happened in the middle of the night, and the whole murder scene was a blood bath. As she delves deeper into her past, she discovers more and more about her brother and the life he had apart from the family.
Gillian Flynn did an top-notch job laying out the story. The storyline goes between the ‘now’ while Libby is investigating the murders and her past, where it builds up to the night of the murders. This story is superb, and it’s a page turner.
Seriously, I stayed up late into the night to finish it (and I rarely do that anymore). If you like murder mysteries with a side of psychological thriller, then this is the book for you.
Have you read Dark Places or any other Gillian Flynn books? I’m currently reading Sharp Objects, which rounds out her collection for me.
Rebecca has been writing about style, beauty, and lifestyle topics since 2011. Thank you so much for reading this post! Feel free to leave any questions or comments below. I love hearing from you!
