Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - How to Kill Men and Get Away With It

First I wouldn’t highly recommend checking the warning for this book before you dive in.
Although I personally felt this book was aiming at inspiration and funny with its dark humour and plot line. I think the execution missed. It is a tense book with a few plot holes and the amount of humour isn’t enough to balance the uncomfortable reflection of reality this book brings.

I thought due to the name of the book there would be more planning before the murder. I’m all for the premise of a book that puts power back in the hands of women. However I feel the graphic description of what happened to the women in this book was not equal to the death they were dealt. Also any power that it felt women may have was completely stripped away at the end with how James treated Kitty when she wasn’t prepared with any of her tools she was still unable to get away. Also ending with the 2 women killed unfortunately left me with the horrible reminder that this is the world we live in and no ones out there to help us.

Content Warnings

sophrolijkbooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Een combinatie van grappig en serieus. Soms gruwelijk hoe gedetailleerd de moord wordt omschreven, maar dan hou ik wel van!

Het einde zag ik niet aankomen, positief verrast! Ik kan niet goed mijn vinger erop leggen waarom ik het geen 5 sterren geef, ik denk rond 60-70 procent dat ik het een beetje saai vond worden, maar de sensatie kwam al snel weer terug, dus zeker wel 4 sterren waard!

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galactic_gigi's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Started this book at 1 a.m. during my exam weeks. Huge mistake! Couldn‘t put it down and actually spoiled myself as to who the stalker was to even go to sleep. Needless to say I basically finished the book in a day. The characters are not really loveable but oddly charming and the dark humour was right up my alley.

I‘m really glad Kitty doesn’t get caught

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dr_kat's review against another edition

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dark funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

There are enough reviews here that y’all can get what this book is about. I’m gonna say this: it was super fun and creative and, yes, gory and violent. I really liked Kitty Collins’s and Tor and was totally captivated by their narratives unfolding. The villains were all scary af, as villains should be; but they were also good representations of the flaws in villains (and why they don’t “win” in the end). So often serial killer stories give the killer (and the hunter, sometimes) these kinds of supernatural kinds of abilities and that can quickly get ridiculous. Brent doesn’t do that — there’s a lot of how life happens, how people only see what they expect to see, etc. — and I think that’s why it works.

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