"I am NOT Serial Killer" has been on our library shelves for a few years now, and at the urging of my younger sister and a fellow librarian, I finally moved it to the top of my TBR list.
If you are looking for a dark murder mystery with supernatural vibes, then look no farther!
If you are a fan of the TV show "Dexter",
Or "Criminal Minds",
Or if you are a fan of Barry Lyga's "I Hunt Killers" trilogy,
Then, I strongly recommend "I Am NOT a Serial Killer".
The Book:
John Wayne Cleaver is a 15 year old teenager.
He is obsessed with learning about serial killers. Reading about them, building profiles on them, writing reports about them, etc.
He works in a morgue with his mother, his aunt, and his older sister. He helps embalm the dead before burial.
Oh, and he is a clinically diagnosed sociopath.
John knows he is different than other people. Emotions, attachments and basic empathy are not something he possesses, and from his obsessive study of serial killers, he knows that he has all the major markers of a budding serial killer.
He is fascinated by the dead.
He likes to watch people and stalk them.
He has dark fantasies that would horrifying his family if they knew.
But John also knows that these behaviors are wrong. He knows it is wrong to stalk people, he knows it is wrong to fantasize about death even if he feels nothing.
So John has rules for himself to prevent himself from going down this path. He is determined to NOT become a serial killer.
However, when a serial killer comes to town and starts murdering the residents of Clayton County, John finds himself tempted in a way he has never been before.
As the bodies start to pile up, John decides that he is going to let his own monster out and end the serial killer before someone else dies.
But what John discovers is darker and more horrifying than anything he could have imagined, and now that his own monster has been let out, there is no going back.
Overall, this was a pretty dark story, which makes sense as the narrator is a sociopath, but the story itself was fast paced and highly engaging. There were several pulse pounding moments that had goosebumps spring up on my arms and chills running down my back. This was NOT a boring mystery.
MILD SPOILER
I must admit that there were times that I felt more sympathy for the "bad guy" than I did for John. John is a hard character to root for as there is nothing more driving him than his own dark needs and a basic knowledge of right and wrong. The "Bad Guy" in this story had motivations that I could understand even if they made him a monster.
Read the book and you will know what I am talking about.
Overall, I would give this book 4.5 stars.
There are 2 other books in the series, but I will be taking a break from this series for now. I think I am going to go find a nice fluffy comedy to read next.
