Dark Places... Dark, twisted and a true page turner....

Candles glow on alters bare
a virgin's death is needed there
sacrifice to Lucifer my master
bring the calico raise the knife
welcome to my sacrifice
plunge the dagger in her breast
I insist
S.A.C.R.I.F.I.C.E.
limbs weaken life flies away demons rejoice
sacrifice, sacrifice, name your price, sacrifice

- Venom, Sacrifice

It's been a while since I've read something that interesting, by God, Gillian Flynn is a genius!! Gone girl is a good book but this one here is epic by all means. The book had it all, fucked up people, metal, satanic rituals, a hell of an ending and a somewhat hopeful message about starting over or whatever. So lets review this book, and I'll try to be brief.

1- Let's discuss our main character, Libby Day. At first, I hated her, but as I went through the book I realised that her character is really complicated and well developed in a way that at some point you'll have to feel sorry for her and I really wanted thing to end well for her. And that's a great thing about Flynn's characters are complicated and somewhat dark not one dimensional. 

2- What helped in making the Libby's character solid is the way the novel is written. You have three parallel narratives going on, one by libby in the present and the other two are by Ben and their mother back in 1985. This made the mystery more engaging and thrilling. 

3- The idea of guilt and second chances and I really do think that this was the novels' main theme. What if after more than 20 years you found out that you may have falsely accused your brother of murdering your entire family but even he doesn't want to talk to save his ass. The novel does a great job in mirroring Libby's feelings towards her brother plus here the thing, at some point you'll ask yourself do they (Ben and Libby) deserve second chances?? and Did Billy do it?? If not, then Libby had to deal with the guilt of imprisoning her own flesh and blood if not then she'll at least know what really happened. I really liked the transition that happened to Libby from trying to find answers to earn some cash to actually trying to find the truth to what happened to her family. 

4- The novel also sheds some light on the whole satanic worship thing that took part in the 80s and how people were freaked out. Ben's character was really complicated and he felt neglected and confused. (spoiler alert) The whole worshiping Satan thing was just a phase, a trend, bullshit in other words. Ben and his friends were a group of confused teenagers who wanted to feel that they belonged to something especially Ben. The whole they worship satan thing was really old, even Led Zeppelin were accused of being satanists. Heck, in Norway, the whole satanic thing was cool a whole genre was built on it aka Black Metal. And as great and artistic Black metal is, it got famous because of the bullshit and urban legends surrounding it. Burning churches was the cool thing back in the days but after moving on, most of those so called satanists were doing the whole thing to gain interest and create some sort of an image, the shock value in other words. The whole satanism thing is really complicated, there are books and documentaries about this, I might discuss this in another time.

5- I'm planning to see the movie to see how did they make this complicated novel to the big screen. The novel is really juicy, the characters are complicated and not one dimensional, the ending is a bit shocking and how Flynn kept adding layers to the story, giving you more stuff to think about and try to find out who killed the days makes this book a hell of a read. Give it a try......