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A review by rinasoso
Mania by Katie May
2.0
DNF at 30%.
I really wanted to get into this book. Serial killing MMCs who are obsessed with their girl? Hell yeah. But sadly, beyond the idea and the MMCs inner monologue towards the FMC, there wasn’t too much I could enjoy.
The first problem I ran into was the setting. The academy is a high school, but the author doesn’t consider it NA, which leads to a huge issue: their ages. They aren’t discussed. Senior year just started, so it’s possible they are 18, but it’s never explicitly stated.
But even if they are, that’s very young (too young IMO) for them to have been killing *for years* and having established an army of sorts. (Just set it in college, it would solve so much!!)
Another related issue (at least I think it’s because of their ages), is all the MCs continually referring to women as “females”. I think it’s to not call them girls, which would imply them being underage, and not women because it would make them seem old(?). And it’s not only once or twice, but seemingly as often as possible. (One time, she meets a classmate, and it’s described as “a blonde female walked up to us”. The “female” could have been left out altogether. It’s truly infuriating.)
I quit when it happened twice in one page, in a flashback, where one of the MMCs first notices “a blonde female” (the FMC). They are playing on a slide and don’t seem older than ten at the most, so what kept the author from calling her a girl??
Second, where the academy is. Again, it isn’t stated explicitly, which in itself I don’t mind at all. But it seems to be very rural, as one of the MMCs has a farm that borders it, and the only fancy restaurant is a few towns over.
The book starts with them murdering a man on said farm who apparently has a history of domestic abuse against his wife and kids, and they send her a letter saying he ran away with his mistress. Okay, but doesn’t he have a job? Wouldn’t she report him missing, or at least go after child support?
And this is only one in a long line of victims, so I can’t see how no one would have noticed the disappearances of so many people in such a small community. (And they all have to be local, because the reason given for killing them is to protect the FMC.)
Third, the FMC. My god, the FMC. She moves into the dorms of the academy her senior year, but she’s attended this school all 3 years before that. And yet, she doesn’t know anybody in her class, except her lab partner and the MMCs.
And no, it’s not that she isn’t friends with them, but she literally has never seen these people before. The explanation is her having been in a fog of grief because her parents died five years earlier.
Of course people grieve differently, but not to notice a single one of your classmates in three years, when her parents deaths occurred two years before even starting at this school?
I think the author did this to have her meet her new roommates, classmates and antagonists for the first time for the reader, but it just makes her seem like an idiot. (Especially when everybody at school knows who she is.)
She is also *very* naive, so naive it borders on stupid, to a degree I really couldn’t empathize with. (“Ooh, this boy hates me so much, but every time he sees me, he gives me his hoodie”)
I wanted to like this book. I really did. And if it weren’t for the male perspectives, I wouldn’t have gotten past the first few pages. But my suspension of disbelief sadly only goes so far.
I really wanted to get into this book. Serial killing MMCs who are obsessed with their girl? Hell yeah. But sadly, beyond the idea and the MMCs inner monologue towards the FMC, there wasn’t too much I could enjoy.
The first problem I ran into was the setting. The academy is a high school, but the author doesn’t consider it NA, which leads to a huge issue: their ages. They aren’t discussed. Senior year just started, so it’s possible they are 18, but it’s never explicitly stated.
But even if they are, that’s very young (too young IMO) for them to have been killing *for years* and having established an army of sorts. (Just set it in college, it would solve so much!!)
Another related issue (at least I think it’s because of their ages), is all the MCs continually referring to women as “females”. I think it’s to not call them girls, which would imply them being underage, and not women because it would make them seem old(?). And it’s not only once or twice, but seemingly as often as possible. (One time, she meets a classmate, and it’s described as “a blonde female walked up to us”. The “female” could have been left out altogether. It’s truly infuriating.)
I quit when it happened twice in one page, in a flashback, where one of the MMCs first notices “a blonde female” (the FMC). They are playing on a slide and don’t seem older than ten at the most, so what kept the author from calling her a girl??
Second, where the academy is. Again, it isn’t stated explicitly, which in itself I don’t mind at all. But it seems to be very rural, as one of the MMCs has a farm that borders it, and the only fancy restaurant is a few towns over.
The book starts with them murdering a man on said farm who apparently has a history of domestic abuse against his wife and kids, and they send her a letter saying he ran away with his mistress. Okay, but doesn’t he have a job? Wouldn’t she report him missing, or at least go after child support?
And this is only one in a long line of victims, so I can’t see how no one would have noticed the disappearances of so many people in such a small community. (And they all have to be local, because the reason given for killing them is to protect the FMC.)
Third, the FMC. My god, the FMC. She moves into the dorms of the academy her senior year, but she’s attended this school all 3 years before that. And yet, she doesn’t know anybody in her class, except her lab partner and the MMCs.
And no, it’s not that she isn’t friends with them, but she literally has never seen these people before. The explanation is her having been in a fog of grief because her parents died five years earlier.
Of course people grieve differently, but not to notice a single one of your classmates in three years, when her parents deaths occurred two years before even starting at this school?
I think the author did this to have her meet her new roommates, classmates and antagonists for the first time for the reader, but it just makes her seem like an idiot. (Especially when everybody at school knows who she is.)
She is also *very* naive, so naive it borders on stupid, to a degree I really couldn’t empathize with. (“Ooh, this boy hates me so much, but every time he sees me, he gives me his hoodie”)
I wanted to like this book. I really did. And if it weren’t for the male perspectives, I wouldn’t have gotten past the first few pages. But my suspension of disbelief sadly only goes so far.