so hbo holds me at gunpoint and makes me watch extended trailers for their new shit before i’m allowed to watch john oliver and i’m curious/enchanted/intrigued by sharp objects! i saw gone girl but i’ve never read any of her books, should i read the book (or any of her others) first before i watch the new show? what am i in for and what’s your recommendation?
I’m very hopeful that the show will be better than the book, because the story will benefit from a more experienced hand plus I hope that typical HBO Prestige TV tricks will make the moments I loved stand out more as exactly as creepy as they should be.
I think Dark Places is better than Sharp Objects but neither of them are that great compared to Gone Girl, which is where she really hit her stride as a writer and in some ways I think of them as a bunch of bad habits she had to get out of the way in order to write Gone Girl, including, I think, accepting and embracing her tendency to write Mary Sue power fantasies.
I also think of Sharp Objects as being very similar to The Shining. It’s got some good, iconic, memorable bits...but it’s also a young writer’s early novel where a Shirley Jackson template is used to complain about your relationship with alcohol, with your parents and with your grim career prospects as a former English major.
Anyway, I’m genuinely not sure whether to recommend the book before the show, but I will say that what I’m looking forward to is a (trying not to spoil here) big reveal about the Dollhouse which is so over the top and creepy that it’s unforgettable.