A review by hellokatya
Love Letters to a Serial Killer by Tasha Coryell

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

i absolutely devoured this novel. super easy to digest, addictive writing style, and it reignited my love for a really shitty main character. 

this woman was ridiculous. the hoops she had to jump through to justify her actions and morals to herself was incredible. her macabre interests (and “care” for the women victims she obsessed over), waxing and waning interests in the main men, all the way to spending money she didn’t have to appease a man she’d never even met, withholding information from her parents, and an entire page more. 

the ratings / reviews on this particular book seem to be very skewed because of the incorrect assumption that the book needs to be taken at face value, and the incapability of an audience to filter out commentary on an issue vs complacency 

at some points, you have no choice but to admire how delusional our main character, hannah, had become. the way that she could truly disconnect from and cast aside anything that didn’t fit with the narrative she wanted to portray to herself is fascinating and should be studied in labs — especially to think people like her exist in spaces all around us every day! 

i think this book was a great portrayal and commentary on the true crime genre / consumption as a whole - especially, again, the hoops someone needs to jump through to justify said interests to themselves, or the ways people can fully detach emotion / empathy for entertainment value — to truly remove someone’s humanity and almost view them as a character instead of a real human that went through a tragedy. 

i think that’s also a big contributing factor to people not liking this book — can’t be faced with their own shortcomings. 

i predicted that bentley was the killer pretty early on in my read through. i think the author did a good job trying to throw off the trail of him, while still leaving good breadcrumbs to confirm his involvement. especially not explicitly naming anyone in the captive chapters.


did the red herring about mark: pg.166 “though cindy had nothing to worry about from me, i would soon learn that she was right to be suspicious of mark” end up going anywhere?? 


the captive chapters, when read sequentially, didn’t make much sense after confirmation that bentley was the murderer. the author tried just a tad too hard to keep anonymity that after the fact made it feel cheap. i think the chapters should’ve been cut out completely, and that the story would’ve run smoother sans them.
 

overall, a really fun and silly thriller that i would highly recommend. again, i devoured and ran through this one in two days - would’ve only taken me one had i not been busy. please pick this one up (and dont be so sensitive taking it at face value — live and giggle a little) 
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