Review: Dark Places

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Again, Flynn was on par with this mystery and thriller. The structure of the book was written so that the murders in Libby's childhood was slowly uncovered from her own present investigation and from Ben's past. Personally, I didn't think this book lived up to the hyped and it wasn't as good as Gone Girl, which still remains one of my favorite thrillers of all time.

My main reason for the three-star rating is mainly because I felt like the pace of the story was too slow. I didn't personally like how Libby was introduced as the main character in the beginning of the novel so I really didn't bother to sympathize with her. That aside, the story was gripping and really, really creepy, but the ending definitely fell flat. (view spoiler)[ At a certain point in the story, it is basically confirmed that Ben didn't murder his family and unfortunately got caught up in the wrong crowd of people. The plot was pretty conventional for me and it didn't surprise me that Ben's crazy girlfriend ended up killing his sister. The murderer that was hired to slaughter Patty for life insurance was a surprise but came off as very anticlimactic compared to Ben and Diondra's story. (hide spoiler)]

Despite the (lower than average) ratings from me for a Flynn book, people have recommended me to read Sharp Objects and I definitely still plan on doing so. Even though this book didn't meet my expectations, I would still recommend it to Gillian Flynn fans (she is so creepy) and all who are looking for a short, thrilling read.

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