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skywardstorytelling 's review for:
Victorian Psycho
by Virginia Feito
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Am I allowed to put this in the "good for her" category?
Victorian Psycho is a delightful burst of wanton violence against a backdrop of classic literary tropes. A governess from a poor background moves in with an upper crust family, all of whom are terrible people. She proceeds to systematically rain down terror and bloodshed upon these unlucky employers... and I was cheering her on the whole time.
The thing that really makes Victorian Psycho work is the narration - we are given total, unfettered access to the protagonist's gorgeously twisted mind. Patrick Bateman can eat his shiny corporate heart out because Winifred Notty has him beat. And she states all of her wonderfully gory thoughts to the reader in colorful, gleeful detail. I'm enamored with Winifred because, unlike many of her type in fiction, none of her cruelty or deviousness is played for seductive purposes. She is obsessive and seems to take pleasure (perhaps sexual, perhaps not) in her own misdeeds, but she's never regarded as sexily manipulative or alluringly mysterious, even by the other characters in the story. She is instead allowed to be a completely stone-cold psycho killer in all of her hockey-mask-deserving glory. If I'm totally honest, I would pay hard-earned dollars and sorely-missed limbs to see her brought to life on screen, wielding inventive weapons like her slasher forefathers and cackling as she skips through rainfalls of gore like an Austenite Harley Quinn.
If you're at all interested in feminine rage, satire and subversion, and women just being completely bonkers with no caveats, READ. THIS. BOOK.
I received an advance review copy for free and I am posting a review of my own will.
Victorian Psycho is a delightful burst of wanton violence against a backdrop of classic literary tropes. A governess from a poor background moves in with an upper crust family, all of whom are terrible people. She proceeds to systematically rain down terror and bloodshed upon these unlucky employers... and I was cheering her on the whole time.
The thing that really makes Victorian Psycho work is the narration - we are given total, unfettered access to the protagonist's gorgeously twisted mind. Patrick Bateman can eat his shiny corporate heart out because Winifred Notty has him beat. And she states all of her wonderfully gory thoughts to the reader in colorful, gleeful detail. I'm enamored with Winifred because, unlike many of her type in fiction, none of her cruelty or deviousness is played for seductive purposes. She is obsessive and seems to take pleasure (perhaps sexual, perhaps not) in her own misdeeds, but she's never regarded as sexily manipulative or alluringly mysterious, even by the other characters in the story. She is instead allowed to be a completely stone-cold psycho killer in all of her hockey-mask-deserving glory. If I'm totally honest, I would pay hard-earned dollars and sorely-missed limbs to see her brought to life on screen, wielding inventive weapons like her slasher forefathers and cackling as she skips through rainfalls of gore like an Austenite Harley Quinn.
If you're at all interested in feminine rage, satire and subversion, and women just being completely bonkers with no caveats, READ. THIS. BOOK.
I received an advance review copy for free and I am posting a review of my own will.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Sexism, Blood, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Fatphobia