I Am Not a Serial Killer | Review

I Am Not a Serial Killer Published by Tor Books by Dan Wells
Series: John Cleaver #1
on March 30, 2010
Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Paranormal, Supernatural, Suspense, Thriller, Urban Fantasy, YA
Pages: 272
Source: Purchased
Format: Paperback
Find the Author: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram
Find the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Rating:

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it.
He's spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.
He's obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn't want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he's written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation.
Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don't demand or expect the empathy he's unable to offer. Perhaps that's what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there's something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat---and to appreciate what that difference means.
Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can't control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.
Dan Wells' debut novel is the first volume of a trilogy that will keep you awake and then haunt your dreams.

 

John Cleaver is not a serial killer. He’s a fifteen-year-old sociopath, with anger and violent tendencies, who obsesses over serial killers and enjoys working with his mother in the family mortuary— but he hasn’t killed anyone so–not a killer.

Honestly, this book was nothing like I expected. But it was everything that I could’ve wanted.

If you’ve ever watched Dexter, then you will get some serious Dexter vibes in the first part of this book. Like, this could have been Dexter when he was a teenaged boy.

“‘I’m named after a serial killer,’ I said. ‘John Wayne Gacy killed thirty-three people in Chicago and buried most of them in the crawl space under his house.’

‘You parents didn’t name you after John Wayne Gacy,’ said Neblin. ‘Believe it or not, I specifically asked your mom about it.’

‘You did?’

‘I’m smarter than I look,’ he said. ‘But you need to remember that one coincidental link to a serial killer is not a destiny.’

‘My dad’s name is Sam,’ I said. ‘That makes me the Son of Sam–a serial killer in New York who said his dog told him to kill.'”

 

I’m going to warn you, that if you want to be surprised by this book–don’t read reviews on Goodreads. I read several and they gave away a major plot point of this book.

So with that warning in place, comes a second warning; this book isn’t what it appears to be, at first. You’ll read this book, thinking that the story is going in one direction, only to be thrown off by the direction the author took it. And some people do not like it. I, however, am not one of those people.

John Cleaver was written in such a way that the reader can’t help but be drawn to him, wondering if he’ll ever quite make that leap into what just seems inevitable. He’s definitely not a normal fifteen-year-old. Normal fifteen-year-olds don’t usually have a set of rules to follow to prevent themselves from becoming slaves to the monster that lives inside them.

A lot of this book is John using that monster to help him find the serial killer in his town. And the constant will-he-or-won’t-he, is a continual presence in the background–Can John keep his tendencies at bay all the while using them to catch and kill the murderer that’s on the loose?

This book was incredibly well-written and held my attention from the first page. It’s a quick read and, if you’re okay with your kids reading about killings, guts, and gore–to a certain extent–then this isn’t a bad book for a teenager.

 

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