Reviews

I was really excited for this book. My favorite character of all time is Hannibal Lecter, particularly his portrayal in the NBC’s TV show Hannibal. I went into this with high expectations as most people who enjoy Hannibal also loved this book. I very much disliked it.

I found myself often disgusted by the writing, the constant tortured food comparisons and sexual descriptions. This book is preoccupied with penis and vagina to an alarming degree, I’ve seen so many people call this work feminist but it’s an endless parade of men and cock talk interspersed with 2016 Buzzfeed pop feminist sayings that feel odd in the mouth of a rich, mid 50s murderess.

I struggled to care about anything that was happening- the premise of Dorothy’s psychopathy also defeated any tension. Everything was detached in a way that made me feel like nothing happened despite the novel spanning decades.

I found Emma’s characterization to be lacking. In Hannibal, a media I found pulled this concept off much more successfully, Hannibal is attractive and charming to the audience despite his psychological profile because he cares about exactly one thing- Will Graham. Emma is supposed to provide that for Dorothy and yet I never got a sense of why she cared, who Emma was, or even how their relationship progressed. Emma was simply there in some scenes and absent in others, she felt like a plot device.

I also thought the inclusion of Alex at the end was a poor choice. Dorothy is an unreliable narrator, she’s reluctant to share about him, sure, but there should have been hints of his existence before the second to last chapter. She credits him for starting her on the path to becoming a serial killer, but he’s not important at all.

Lastly…let’s talk about the girlboss of it all. This book seems to want to have its cake and eat it too. At some points it seems to be arguing that feminism necessitates acknowledging that some women are simply monsters. They are cruel, they are manipulative, they kill with impunity. That’s true! And it’s a perfectly fine theme to bring to a book. But there’s ALSO this weird thread of “maybe women killing is Good actually”. It wants Dorothy to be unsympathetic and motiveless, but it also wants to wrap itself in the trappings of Good For Her or Feminine Rage aesthetics. It will interrupt Dorothy’s discussions of her life as a remorseless serial killer to talk about, say, how juries want to “burn the bad witch”. Sure, but you did it. You killed the guy. That’s not a witch trial.

Overall, it was disappointing. I’m annoyed. I usually finish 250 page books in an afternoon, this one I slogged through in 3 days. 2 stars.