An extremely dark exploration of serial killing. Even an admirable final girl can’t balance the ick.
Wright explores the ravages of psychopathy on society through the lives of two young killers.
The Zanetti twins, Benjamin and Corinthia, are marked by violence from an early age, witnesses to their father committing a brutal murder. Both disgusted and fascinated by this traumatic event, they begin to take out a latent propensity for violence on animals. When Corinthia threatens to escalate by killing their younger brother, Ben intervenes and Corinthia is gravely hurt, which spurs their mentally ill mother to begin locking Ben in the basement. Ben and Corinthia eventually run away to live with their wealthy grandmother, whose kindness is not enough to undo years of abuse and erratic behavior. When she dies, it doesn’t take long for them to go hunting female students from the local university, abducting and killing them. Several years later, a strong, savvy Black final girl–type named Amanda Taylor puts the pieces together to save her roommate, identifying the perpetrators of the string of murders. Only, this is not the full story. Wright throws in a pretty sharp twist about two-thirds of the way through the novel (and a less successful one at the end), but by that point, having spent so much time in the damaged lives and psyches of Corinthia and Ben has taken a toll. This book is a lot. It’s unflinching, but the violence is graphic and the psychoses incredibly disturbing. The writing is also uneven; there are almost comedic moments—“Ben saw red—and not just blood, either”—that clash with unwieldy sentences like this: “Equal parts sweet and short-tempered, Amanda was a walking paradox who always smiled before narrowing her dark brown eyes when she was angry.” There’s nothing wrong with variety, but this speaks to a larger unevenness in the novel’s style. It’s hard to tell, in the end, whether we are being asked to sympathize with the twins—and if we can, what does that expose about us?
An extremely dark exploration of serial killing. Even an admirable final girl can’t balance the ick.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9781636281568
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
