I Am Not A Serial Killer

I enjoyed this quick read for a number of reasons, but primarily due to the well characterized protagonist. It is ironic that while John Wayne Cleaver is a sociopath who spends a lot of time dwelling on his inability to understand the emotions of others it is this very distance that makes his character so easy to relate to. Everyone can empathize with emotional distance and confusion during adolescence, and John's psychopathic casts him in an intriguingly distant, but also oddly sympathetic, light. I also enjoyed the antagonist, who was both initially unexpected and well rounded given his nature, although the remainder of the supporting cast has somewhat scant characterization, in particular the mother, I presume due either to the brevity of the novel. I also appreciated the way the supernatural elements were included. The progression felt very gothic, and made the stories progression that much more interesting. There stark contrast between how the world was perceived and understood by the protagonist was made more concrete by his secret knowledge, and reinforced the strong individualism in his character. Fun read, not too deep, and definitely easy to relate to. P.S. I listen to Writing Excuses, which is a fun podcast, and is probably one of the reasons I liked this book.

I am not much of an avid reader or do a lot of reading in general. I don't know why I felt like looking at some books one day, None of them really caught my attention until I saw this book. Now let me just say that as soon as I picked up this book I never wanted to put it down. It is suspenseful as well as humorous, but I think you need a certain type of level of intelligence to understand the humor inside this book. It is also very dark and twisted and you will love the main character.

It's partially my mistake for not liking this book as I should. The reason was the genre. I enjoy supernatural books, but I have to be in the mindset to read one. So, as the killer was revealed in the 40% mark, I got disappointed. After that, I finished it just for the sake of finishing it. I expected from the first 30% that I'm reading about something similar to Dexter. A killer who kill the bad guys, yet work as a detective at the same time. When the age of the protagonist was revealed, I thought that would be the beginning of how he joined the police force to become the best detective and the one who created the perfect murders. But no, it was a hunt for how to kill a paranormal entity. Maybe the series get better, but I don't see myself finishing it. Also, am I the only one who was fed up with the repetition of the same lines over and over again. One last thing, it felt like reading nonfiction in many parts, which was weird.