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kateycakee's review against another edition
3.0
Great concept, but badly executed. Somehow managed to make serial killing boring. The sex scenes were badly written and didn't tickle my pickle at all.
mayonessa's review against another edition
2.0
Rating: 2.5 stars
I want to start off by saying I bought this book because I really liked the cover and I liked the short bit of premise that Amazon provided. I got overhyped about it and bought it right before COVID hit and then never touched it until recently. At one point I was so anxious to start it that I tried to get through the other books on my TBR list so that I could finally read it myself. Then I found myself anxious to just finish the book, not out of interest to know the ending but to finally be done with it.
I know there is a specific subset of people who will love it, and unfortunately I was not one of them. Which is very disappointing because I rarely, if EVER, end up disliking the books I read. However, the biggest problem with My Pet Serial Killer is that the book should have ended in the first half. If it ended like that I would say that the story would be a lot more enjoyable to me as a reader, a lot less frustrating, and it would have been a much better execution of its themes than the entire second half of the book. Whatever that was.
Plus after a while, the prose style gets exhausting with the more characters that are introduced. It becomes less literarily artistic and more of a hindrance to the reader's comprehension. I had to force myself to finish the ladder half of the book even though I was exhausted reading it. It was novel in the first 250 pages and I enjoyed being initially challenged, but then it just dragged on for too long and made certain areas and plot points of the book too abstract to understand.
The amount of belief suspension the author begged us to do while reading was kind of criminal for a book that is apparently supposed to "reinvent the serial killer genre". I think my biggest issue was more personal to me. But, I WAS a Forensic Science major, and everything pertaining to that field and its presence in the book is so laughably incorrect I just had to tell myself that it wasn't the author's fault. He did what was "best" for the story. And yet, the best was not good enough in the end to save it for me.
Claire was probably the most obnoxious part of the whole story and ultimately the main reason I didn't like it. I understand it takes a good author to write a well-rounded character that is despicable and well hated, but Claire wasn't any of that. She was just cringe. Every thought, every sentence this character said was really aggravating. She felt less like some super sexy, powerful, manipulative, evil Dom that the author desperately wanted us to view her as and more so like some white bitch I went to college with that thought she was smarter than everyone else because she "wasn't like other girls" and read shit like Rand or Chomsky.
A lot of times her dialogue in the book made me feel like she was the mary sue of some weird gore-porn fic written by some edge-lord teenage boy who spends too much time on 4chan, rather than an actualized written character who just happened to be a female serial killer.
And I get that's overly harsh, but personally I just could not get over how annoying she was to read (since she was the only POV we got). Especially when, in-universe the world just bends to her command. The biggest issue I have with My Pet is she does not face any consequences, and unlike other similar characters and more famous "antiheroes" she rarely if ever gets close to any sort of tangible danger. There is no suspense in this book since Claire never gets close to being caught. There is no reward in the end when everything goes her way cause there was never anything diametrically opposed to her other than the occasional whisper of law enforcement in the background.
This book is definitely perfect for a certain type of reader, but that reader was not me.
I want to start off by saying I bought this book because I really liked the cover and I liked the short bit of premise that Amazon provided. I got overhyped about it and bought it right before COVID hit and then never touched it until recently. At one point I was so anxious to start it that I tried to get through the other books on my TBR list so that I could finally read it myself. Then I found myself anxious to just finish the book, not out of interest to know the ending but to finally be done with it.
I know there is a specific subset of people who will love it, and unfortunately I was not one of them. Which is very disappointing because I rarely, if EVER, end up disliking the books I read. However, the biggest problem with My Pet Serial Killer is that the book should have ended in the first half. If it ended like that I would say that the story would be a lot more enjoyable to me as a reader, a lot less frustrating, and it would have been a much better execution of its themes than the entire second half of the book. Whatever that was.
Plus after a while, the prose style gets exhausting with the more characters that are introduced. It becomes less literarily artistic and more of a hindrance to the reader's comprehension. I had to force myself to finish the ladder half of the book even though I was exhausted reading it. It was novel in the first 250 pages and I enjoyed being initially challenged, but then it just dragged on for too long and made certain areas and plot points of the book too abstract to understand.
The amount of belief suspension the author begged us to do while reading was kind of criminal for a book that is apparently supposed to "reinvent the serial killer genre". I think my biggest issue was more personal to me. But, I WAS a Forensic Science major, and everything pertaining to that field and its presence in the book is so laughably incorrect I just had to tell myself that it wasn't the author's fault. He did what was "best" for the story. And yet, the best was not good enough in the end to save it for me.
Claire was probably the most obnoxious part of the whole story and ultimately the main reason I didn't like it. I understand it takes a good author to write a well-rounded character that is despicable and well hated, but Claire wasn't any of that. She was just cringe. Every thought, every sentence this character said was really aggravating. She felt less like some super sexy, powerful, manipulative, evil Dom that the author desperately wanted us to view her as and more so like some white bitch I went to college with that thought she was smarter than everyone else because she "wasn't like other girls" and read shit like Rand or Chomsky.
A lot of times her dialogue in the book made me feel like she was the mary sue of some weird gore-porn fic written by some edge-lord teenage boy who spends too much time on 4chan, rather than an actualized written character who just happened to be a female serial killer.
And I get that's overly harsh, but personally I just could not get over how annoying she was to read (since she was the only POV we got). Especially when, in-universe the world just bends to her command. The biggest issue I have with My Pet is she does not face any consequences, and unlike other similar characters and more famous "antiheroes" she rarely if ever gets close to any sort of tangible danger. There is no suspense in this book since Claire never gets close to being caught. There is no reward in the end when everything goes her way cause there was never anything diametrically opposed to her other than the occasional whisper of law enforcement in the background.
This book is definitely perfect for a certain type of reader, but that reader was not me.
jolietjane's review against another edition
1.0
This is the worst case of “amazing concept terrible execution” I’ve ever seen. I gobble up serial killer media and will put up with a hell of a lot. I’ve rarely read prose this bad in my entire life.
This is all stream of consciousness from the girl who has more or less adopted a serial killer boyfriend and has a dominant relationship to him. This story sounded like a dream for me. A perfect match.
Little did I know the prose was unconnected choppy and isolating ranting that doesn’t allow you to connect with or understand any of the characters or their relationships. Remember Girl A? If you thought that was bad, this is worse. The lack of spirit, passion, sex, or anything resembling a personality in a book with a concept THIS good earns a rare and furious one star from me. This book needed an editor before getting dropped off to print.
This is all stream of consciousness from the girl who has more or less adopted a serial killer boyfriend and has a dominant relationship to him. This story sounded like a dream for me. A perfect match.
Little did I know the prose was unconnected choppy and isolating ranting that doesn’t allow you to connect with or understand any of the characters or their relationships. Remember Girl A? If you thought that was bad, this is worse. The lack of spirit, passion, sex, or anything resembling a personality in a book with a concept THIS good earns a rare and furious one star from me. This book needed an editor before getting dropped off to print.
kmk182's review against another edition
1.0
I didn't like this at all. There is nothing here but violence. Violence can be used to say something, but this has nothing to say. An interesting premise, what if someone controls a serial killer; but what you end up with is two characters you loathe. There is nothing shocking here, anyone who has read Jack Ketchum or Brett Easton Ellis has read worse, but those authors made the violence hit you on a deeper level. This book is like a child cursing, there's no substance. The author has a way with words but couldn't put together a plot.
bookwormymegan's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
aribookie's review against another edition
2.0
This was gruesome and also boring somehow. The author had a weird meandering style I could not take to.
melanie_page's review
2.0
"No matter how much or how little torture is shown in a movie, for the victim, it has to be never-ending. Real time freezes and torture time is the new reality. Places in Michael J. Seidlinger’s novel My Pet Serial Killer froze in time--but not for the victim--for the killer. The novel opens with college student Claire attending parties and going to clubs to find the perfect person. She emphasizes she’s an “observer,” lest we forget, which makes her seem extra creepy; she’s looking for the perfect boyfriend, right? Not true--Claire wants the perfect serial killer, one she can take home and call her own, her “pet.” Naturally, a pet needs a master, and Claire becomes just that to the man she finds, Victor..."
Full review now up at The Next Best Book Club: http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/melanie-page-reviews-my-pet-serial.html
Full review now up at The Next Best Book Club: http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/melanie-page-reviews-my-pet-serial.html
melanie_page's review against another edition
2.0
"No matter how much or how little torture is shown in a movie, for the victim, it has to be never-ending. Real time freezes and torture time is the new reality. Places in Michael J. Seidlinger’s novel My Pet Serial Killer froze in time--but not for the victim--for the killer. The novel opens with college student Claire attending parties and going to clubs to find the perfect person. She emphasizes she’s an “observer,” lest we forget, which makes her seem extra creepy; she’s looking for the perfect boyfriend, right? Not true--Claire wants the perfect serial killer, one she can take home and call her own, her “pet.” Naturally, a pet needs a master, and Claire becomes just that to the man she finds, Victor..."
Full review now up at The Next Best Book Club: http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/melanie-page-reviews-my-pet-serial.html
Full review now up at The Next Best Book Club: http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/melanie-page-reviews-my-pet-serial.html
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