Here we essentially have a teen drama with asides full of excessive sex, abuse, BDSM, pedophilia, child porn, and murder.
Needless to say, what I got was not what I was expecting.
Obligatory disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher and am choosing to give my unbiased review.
Let’s talk about the narrator first.
It’s not all that often that I encounter a narrator who can pull off believable voices of both genders. In that regard, Brenda Scott Wlazlo preformed brilliantly. Each character has a unique, believable voice, making character differentiation simple. In most cases, her vocal inflections were spot on. And while her tempo changes perhaps leave a bit to be desired, there were shifts that definitely helped with the pacing of the book.
Easily a 4.5-star performance.
Now, the story.
Where do I begin?
First, let me preface this with the fact that I HAVE NOT read the first two books. I did reach out to the publisher about getting review copies of them, but I never got a response. I will endeavor not to let that lack affect this review.
However, what will affect my review is that some of the issues handled very flippantly in this book were very bad for my mental and emotional health and there is not a single content warning anywhere on any of the books.
Now, I didn’t go into this book willfully ignorant. Between the title and the description it’s clear that the main character is a serial killer and (at least in the main) her victims are pedophiles. Probably violent ones.
So far so good. I can get on board with that.
The trouble is, that isn’t what the book is about.
The primary focus of the book is the (more or less) ordinary teen drama of this group of I think 7 or 8 friends, most of them girls, who are presented as mostly normal kids who indulge in a few deviant behaviors.
With the major exceptions of Cosette and Chris, who style themselves as Bonnie & Clyde yet (though the analogy is imperfect) have more in common with Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka.
Honestly, had this not been an ARC its very unlikely I would have finished it. The slow drudgery of the teen drama aspect really tested my resolve to finish as it was.
Ostensibly, Cosette is doing what she does to clean up the filth near her home. The problem is that it becomes increasingly clear as the story progresses that she has a real, chemical addiction to killing and is just feeding that addiction. She’s a fiend that only controls her addiction through the intervention of others.
It’s difficult for me to care or even sympathize with a character who, when it comes right down to it, doesn’t much care who she hurts, who she kills, or who gets in the way so long as she gets what she wants and her “family” doesn’t get hurt in the process.
Though I feel like that last caveat would be mutable under the right circumstances.
I won’t give specifics as that would be approaching spoiler lines, but there are plenty of examples of her crossing into the territory of things she is punishing in others and it makes her come off as a hypocrite.
Additionally, if we look at historical examples as a guide, it doesn’t make any sense for these mostly well adjusted, at least borderline normal kids to be behaving like pure sociopaths. There are always warning signs, even if they are extremely subtle, and most of the kids lack them entirely.
In the end, Dave is the only character I could really connect with. He’s one of the two people in the book I can confidently say are good people, his motivations are pure, even if they start out rather shallow, and he keeps his head throughout.
Sadly, until the very end he has very little to do with the real story of the book.
Owing largely to having had similar trauma as a child, I strongly sympathize with Shelby and Sierra and their struggles. However, I can’t for the life of me wrap my head around their “coping mechanisms.” I admit that experiences being somewhat different and me not being a woman means I can’t 100% say that would never happen, but what I can confidently say is that I find it extremely unlikely.
All that aside, I have to admit to being rather put off by the sexuality of the whole thing. I’m not talking about the extreme openness and fluid sexual orientations of the characters here. While I do find that aspect very strange, I accept that especially in certain places that is a fact of young life these days. Raging hormones not withstanding, I can’t help finding the heavy focus on sex in the book to be more than a bit… pointless.
If this had been an erotica book then it would have made perfect sense. But where it’s ostensibly a psychological thriller, and apart from the heavy BDSM scene there being little to no detail in the sex scenes, I can’t help wondering just what the point was. Most of them added little to nothing to either plot or character development.
Yes, a few of them added to Cosette’s character, particularly in illustrating her pathology. But most of them just seemed gratuitous. Yet without enough detail to really be gratuitous. So again I have to ask, why?
Okay, let’s talk about prose for a moment.
I cannot deny that this book is well written. Atty Eve is a skilled writer who knows her craft. The fact that I even finished it should speak to that.
For me, as a reader, this book started out with three strikes against it already.
One, it’s written in first person.
Two, it’s written in present tense.
Three, there’s nothing remotely supernatural or paranormal involved.
Any of the three alone has been known to kill a book for me. Any one generally means only a superbly written book will keep my interest.
There are a handful of instances of passive voice and other minor clunkiness, but for the most part the prose is masterfully written. So well done.
Now, I have to admit the ending was a pleasant surprise. More things than I expected finally came together to become relevant and that final confrontation was more satisfying than I thought it would be.
In spite of everything, there’s a part of me that wants to read the next one just to see what comes next. While the ending is complete, there’s some aftermath coming that was not detailed that I’m curious about.
In the end, as much as I wish I could give it a higher rating due to the skillful writing, I just can’t. There’s too much here that doesn’t work and doesn’t fit the book’s genre.