At the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, you will definitely learn your lesson. An atmospheric, heartfelt, and delightfully spooky novel for fans of Coraline, Splendors and Glooms, andThe Mysterious Benedict Society.
But then Lawrence goes missing. And he's not the only one. Victoria soon discovers that The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls is not what it appears to be. Kids go in but come out different. Or they don't come out at all.
To be honest, I wasn't really going to write about this one because I don't think I liked it much. With the way things are for me right now, I don't feel like blogging about each and every book I read anymore. Also, I just don't have the time to do that. And I'm not reading nearly as much as I normally do. But I was looking for something "creative" to do today that wasn't just sitting here and surfing the internet. I'm trying to slowly back away from social media and it's been working somewhat. Mostly due to the fact that my husband and I just watched about 2.5 seasons of Buffy in about 4 days. And I might have to go back to work next week. So, you know, time will be less.
Anyhow, things I did like about this particular middle grade mystery were: the writing, the story telling and the extreme creepiness of the plot. Bugs. Yuck. Puppets. Yuck.bThings I didn't like about this book: Victoria. I disliked her almost instantly and she didn't grow on me at all. I find it very difficult to read a story when I have zero connection with the protagonist. But I was determined to read this story all the way through because I had been wanting to read it for ages. And I bought it. So I was going to read the blasted thing.
I also didn't really like how creepy it was. But that's more of a me thing. Then again, I don't think I'd give this book to my niece to read because it's dark and gloomy and there's creepy death. It's an odd sort of middle grade book. It's one of those "smart" type books as I call them. It's not simple in its writing or plot and it is very well written. There's just something about it that rubs me the wrong way. I believe that's mostly due to my dislike of Victoria. I don't actually feel that she was trying to find Lawrence because she was his friend, I feel like she was trying to find him because it was wrong for her to not have him around anymore to boss around and pick on. I didn't feel as though this friendship was real – or healthy.
But you know something, the entire story felt exactly the shade of brown as on the cover. It's a dark story, but it's a cardboard, dirt sort of dark. Like everything was beige, brown and black in the story. The clothes. The people. The houses. The atmosphere. I didn't sense any colours other than those. All dull, dirty colours and that makes me anxious.
I think this is a pretty good "spooky story" to read in October and around Halloween if you have kids who can handle these sorts of things. But there's no whimsy in the spooky. It's not quite the same as Harry Potter creepy/spooky. It's not quite the same as other middle grade books that also have death. This one was different and I can't put my finger on why I am feeling this way. The only thing I can think of is that I didn't like the characters so I wasn't as "in" the story as I normally am so I was more focused on what was happening around them than TO them and how they should be reacting?
I had high hopes for this book after having read and loved Gone Girl. Unfortunately I didn't think this was anywhere near the breathtaking amazingness of Flynn's third novel. Yes, Sharp Objects is twisted and pretty freaky, but in my opinion it only reaches any twistyness in the last quarter of the book.
Whereas with Gone Girl I was gripped right from the first pages, it took me forever to warm up to Camille and the supposed mystery she was uncovering while trying to report on the murders of two young girls from her home town. I didn't care for Camille and her obvious drinking problem. I found no heat between her and the FBI guy. I didn't even find the mystery of how the second girl was murdered to be all that interesting for the longest time.
To be honest, even with how wonderfully this story was written, I was bored. I was bored up until that last quarter of the book when things began to happen and clues began to pop up. I feel like there was too much time spent on building up the story and the story of Camille's life and a lot less creep factor over what was supposed to be creepy and twisted.
Once the ball started rolling though, I was hooked. I needed to know what was going on. I'd had suspicions for a while which did come true and although I suspected one person and then thought it would be another and then was suspecting the first person again, I was committed to the end.
The summary on the back of the trade paperback mislead me, it starts off with "Fresh out of rehab…" and something about bringing up a past that was forgotten made me think this was going to start with a bang. In fact you don't learn about a lot of that for a while and I was so confused and worried I was reading the wrong book, =P I wish the summary above (from goodreads, off the hard cover) was the one I'd read first because I think I would have gone into the book with a different attitude and expectation.
What I do love is Gillian Flynn's style of writing. Even if I didn't ever warm up to Camille and felt impatient while waiting for the CREEPY to happen, I couldn't help but notice how well she builds her stories. And I loved – LOVED – the way she incorporated cutting into the story. All those other books I have read in the past that were solely about self-mutilation/cutting that just didn't mesh with me? Well, this one did. The whole idea of words… it was just… so loud in my head. So..emotional and raw.
I'm sort of wondering what kinds of people this author grew up around though. So many crazies in her books! Of course I am going to pick up Dark Places this weekend. It's the right time of year for crazy, killing people in books, right?
Holy beejeezus! So I picked up this book because so many people in the online course I am taking mentioned this as one of their current and/or last reads. It was so raved about that I had to see what it was all about. I even joked that we should make this an unofficial textbook for the class. 🙂 One of my classmates mentioned that I should get the school work I wanted to do done first because once I started Gone Girl I wouldn't be able to put it down.
You know what? She was right. I took a day off of work to focus on some research and instead, I had to finish this book because the few moments I'd be able to grab during the week, before I fell asleep, were not enough. I NEEDED TO READ MORE!
If you're looking for a Fall/Halloween read then pick this book up. What you think is happening changes from chapter to chapter, from part to part. Once I'd gotten to the end of Part 1 I had to start Part 2 to see what was next. Then I couldn't stop reading because I NEEDED to know what Part 3 was all about.
Then there was the ending.
This book will freak you the heck out. It's very psychological and it is fascinating to see how the story plays out. How things end up. I was completely enthralled by these characters. I couldn't believe what I was reading. My brain was a continuous loop of "Oh my gosh! I can't believe this person!" and "Oh my gosh, that person's mind is brilliant! Are there people like this in real life?" The more freaked out I was getting the more impressed I was becoming by the thought process.
You forget that there's an author behind all of this who is actually creating the characters and the mystery itself. Should I be worried about the AUTHOR? 😉 Should I be worried that there are people out there in the world that could be just like the characters in the book?
Worried or fascinated? Impressed? Scared?