Dark Places: Brutal

Brutal. It's all I can think of when I think of this book. A brutal 7 days to finish it. A brutally written book about a brutally murdered family and the effect it had on the lone innocent survivor.

Libby is an adult that can't seem to fulfill her adult-like duties. No job, no more money, and only her "bad blood" and cat to keep her company. As for character growth I think she gets an A. She does change a lot through the book, going from a moocher to a semi-adult, able to make the decision to actually BUY chapstick (gasp). But for the most part, she was hard to deal with. I was welcoming the chapters from the past because I was so tired of listening to her whine.

I mean, I understand. Her family was murdered and her brother's in jail for it. She has basically no one, but I don't feel sorry for her. She put herself in this situation she's in. She's the one that decided to take the easy "poor pitiful me" road, and push everyone away at the same time.

Throughout the book you get glimpses into the past from Ben Day and Patty Day's perspective. Things they did on that awful day that changed the Day's lives as they knew them. I liked Ben's chapters the best, mostly because they gave you a piece of the puzzle, a cliffhanger, and a hint that just about everyone Libby talked to was lying.

What I didn't like was the constant change in tense. One second you'd be reading from Ben's perspective in first person and a couple sentences later it's still Ben's perspective, but from a third person's point of view. Some random narrator that just came out of nowhere. There were a couple sections I had to stop and re-read whole pages because all of a sudden I had no idea who was talking about whom.

I have this habit of when I'm struggling through a book, I look it up on IMDB to see if it's already been cast, sometimes it makes it easier to read if I can picture other people that someone else has picked, luckily this one had been. Unluckily, I don't think Charlize Theron makes much sense for Libby. Most of the other cast makes sense, or I don't know them well enough to care.

All I'm hoping for is a normal book-to-movie rendition. Gone Girl was a great movie, but it was also 3 hours long. And that children, is why most movies just graze the books. Because no one wants to re-watch a 3 hour movie. Looking at you Transformers: Age of Extinction.

So, in the end: It was book that was hard to follow and pretty annoying 80% of the time. BUT, the story line itself was pretty interesting and the mystery was intriguing. The ending however, was just as disappointing as the main character herself. It was also, nothing like Gone Girl. So don't go buy Dark Places thinking "Oh I loved Gone Girl, this one is bound to be good." You've been warned.