Reviewed
by Christy H.
Libby doesn’t want to get a job. She’s not exactly someone
who has her life together, and she’s not really interested in trying to start
now. She does agree, however, to sell some family mementos to a true crime fan
club who are obsessed with her story. She’ll even hunt down persons of interest
to ask them questions – if the price is right.
When Libby was seven her mother and
two older sisters were all brutally murdered in the middle of the night in
their isolated Kansas farmhouse. Young Libby pinned it on her fifteen year old
brother Ben who was convicted and sent to prison for life. Since then, Libby
has bounced from relative to relative, usually wreaking havoc in her wake. Now
in her thirties she lives alone in a small apartment, living off years of donations
to the lone survivor of the Kinnakee Kansas Farm Massacre. But that money is
running out. This is where the true crime fan club (Kill Club) comes in. They
believe Ben is innocent, and Libby is to blame for “lying” to police when she
was a child. (Some members of the club are horrifically rude to her when they
finally meet face to face. “She’s still a little liar.” I’ve never wanted to
slap a fictional character so much in my life.)
Nevertheless, money is money. Libby
agrees to do some digging and hunt down people to interview. She’s never really
thought twice about Ben’s guilt. Of course he did it. But she tries not to
think about that night at all. She hasn’t seen Ben in all the years since. As
Libby investigates and hunts down people connected to teenaged Ben, the
narrative jumps back and forth in time. The past focuses on the day of the murders
with POV chapters from Ben and their mother Patty. Present day is all Libby. I
enjoyed this narrative structure, and I thought all the little parallels
between past-Ben and present-Libby’s thoughts were a nice touch.
Gillian Flynn is really good at
writing unlikeable characters who you still want to read about. Libby is no
exception. Although there is sympathy there because of her terrible loss, she
does really horrible things to test that sympathy to its breaking point. I
guess now is as good a time as any to give potential readers a warning for graphic
animal cruelty. (Although to be fair to Libby, the worse incident in the book
has nothing to do with her.) Needless to say, this was a very dark read. I
think I felt the most for poor Patty who has one awful thing dumped on her
after another when she’s barely keeping it together in the first place. I love
Flynn’s writing though, and she kept me turning pages long past my bedtime. I
also liked the references to real life crimes and the Satanic Panic of the
1980s and 1990s. Flynn satirizes hardcore true crime fandom as well without
much exaggeration as they can truly be over the top.
This review was a struggle to write
as I don’t want to give away any spoilers, and I’m still processing what I
think about the novel as a whole. But I will say it’s an interesting conclusion
although not completely satisfactory. I suppose anything else would be out of
character for Gillian Flynn. As much as I liked Gone Girl, I think I like this
one even more. The story is a little more robust with more characters to focus
on and no shortage of suspense.
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