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Kill Dick
ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF
FOURTEEN STORIES, NONE OF THEM ARE YOURS
, CO-WRITER OF THE FILM
EILEEN
and Oscar Nominated film CAUSEWAY
RECIPIENT OF PRESTIGIOUS RONALD SUKENICK INNOVATIVE FICTION PRIZE AND JOAN SCOTT MEMORIAL FICTION AWARD
“If this book were any better I’d cut my own head off.”—Ottessa Moshfegh
“ Kill Dick is a fever dream.”–Harriet Armstrong, author of To Rest Our Minds and Bodies
A fever dream, Kill Dick is a literary thriller that plunges into the chaos of Los Angeles where addiction, privilege, and corruption combust.
At nineteen, Susie Vogelman should be she’s an NYU dropout with no responsibilities, endless prescription pills, and a Brentwood estate to waste away in. But Los Angeles has other plans. A string of brutal murders targeting addicts spreads through the city, and Susie’s ivory tower begins to crumble. The headlines point too close to her father’s ties to an opioid empire, a sinister secret society, and her own complicity in the systems holding it all together.
Then there’s Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor running a rehab scam so audacious it’s almost admirable. When their lives collide, Susie and Peter are dragged into a web of privilege, corruption, and violence, where every escape leads deeper into the rot.
Dark, satirical, and razor-sharp, Kill Dick is a modern literary thriller that unflinchingly dissects wealth, exploitation, and the perilous line between survival and self-destruction.
RECIPIENT OF PRESTIGIOUS RONALD SUKENICK INNOVATIVE FICTION PRIZE AND JOAN SCOTT MEMORIAL FICTION AWARD
“If this book were any better I’d cut my own head off.”—Ottessa Moshfegh
“ Kill Dick is a fever dream.”–Harriet Armstrong, author of To Rest Our Minds and Bodies
A fever dream, Kill Dick is a literary thriller that plunges into the chaos of Los Angeles where addiction, privilege, and corruption combust.
At nineteen, Susie Vogelman should be she’s an NYU dropout with no responsibilities, endless prescription pills, and a Brentwood estate to waste away in. But Los Angeles has other plans. A string of brutal murders targeting addicts spreads through the city, and Susie’s ivory tower begins to crumble. The headlines point too close to her father’s ties to an opioid empire, a sinister secret society, and her own complicity in the systems holding it all together.
Then there’s Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor running a rehab scam so audacious it’s almost admirable. When their lives collide, Susie and Peter are dragged into a web of privilege, corruption, and violence, where every escape leads deeper into the rot.
Dark, satirical, and razor-sharp, Kill Dick is a modern literary thriller that unflinchingly dissects wealth, exploitation, and the perilous line between survival and self-destruction.
280 pages, Hardcover
Published April 14, 2026
About the author
Luke B. Goebel
5 books135 followersLuke Goebel is an author and screenwriter celebrated for his unflinching honesty and innovative storytelling.
A recipient of the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize and the Joan Scott Memorial Fiction Award, his debut novel, Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, garnered critical acclaim for its fragmented yet profoundly resonant exploration of love, grief, and the restless search for identity. His next novel, Kill Dick, will be published in Spring 2026 by Red Hen Press.
Goebel also co-wrote Eileen, starring Anne Hathaway and McKenzie Thompson, and Causeway, starring Jennifer Lawrence.
He lives in Pasadena.
A recipient of the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize and the Joan Scott Memorial Fiction Award, his debut novel, Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, garnered critical acclaim for its fragmented yet profoundly resonant exploration of love, grief, and the restless search for identity. His next novel, Kill Dick, will be published in Spring 2026 by Red Hen Press.
Goebel also co-wrote Eileen, starring Anne Hathaway and McKenzie Thompson, and Causeway, starring Jennifer Lawrence.
He lives in Pasadena.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
April 24, 2026
The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction For the week ending April 19, 2026
Real Rating: 4.5* of five
The Publisher Says: A fever dream, Kill Dick is a literary thriller that plunges into the chaos of Los Angeles where addiction, privilege, and corruption combust.
At nineteen, Susie Vogelman should be she’s an NYU dropout with no responsibilities, endless prescription pills, and a Brentwood estate to waste away in. But Los Angeles has other plans. A string of brutal murders targeting addicts spreads through the city, and Susie’s ivory tower begins to crumble. The headlines point too close to her father’s ties to an opioid empire, a sinister secret society, and her own complicity in the systems holding it all together.
Then there’s Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor running a rehab scam so audacious it’s almost admirable. When their lives collide, Susie and Peter are dragged into a web of privilege, corruption, and violence, where every escape leads deeper into the rot.
Dark, satirical, and razor-sharp, Kill Dick is a modern literary thriller that unflinchingly dissects wealth, exploitation, and the perilous line between survival and self-destruction.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Health scammers, like Peter Holiday in this story, might be the lowest scum on this wide, green Earth. Preying on those desperate for their very lives...! My mother's father fell for the Laetrile scam in the 1970s. Luckily he survived more than a few years after it was exposed to all as a hoax, but it cemented my powerful disdain for health scammers as it was an expensive lesson. Fast-forward from my family's 1970s to Susie Vogelman, our PoV character, in a circle of hell called the glittering world of too-rich too-dimwitted 2016 LA.
What's worse than an addict without morals or boundaries? Worse even than an enabler of the addict? The addict turned enabler. Susie, who apparently never so much as once looked into a mirror that showed her anything except her surface, is a participant in a lot of different kinds of enabling in this story. It's very well done, it never lets the pace of revelations slacken, but it also never once shows even a glimmer of realization in Susie or her coterie of criminally negligent creeps. But their surfaces are pretty! And their credit cards are limitless!
I wanted to shake Susie into awareness of her hollowness, lest she implode causing still further damage. But Author Goebel is careful to make this world honest by giving it consequences despite no one in the cast being anything but appalling. Bad things are going to happen, and I didn't care about the consequences to any of the cast just to the folks who were victimized by the cast. The suppurating wounds of vapidity exacerbated by the absence of empathy (honestly, I'm not sure Susie in particular even has a theory of mind) in every character are never allowing anyone to escape dire consequences.
When they come I was deeply surprised to feel...sad is too strong, sympathetic is in the wrong emotional register, wistful is too kindly meant...to not feel triumphant? I think that's closer. I was eager for the comeuppances to be passed around, and Peter the scumbag to get seconds. After all, this was the moment that the country saw Trump installed in entirely the wrong kind of government housing. What use is fiction of not to redress horrifying imbalances?
Showing them to us, forcing us to see that the rot is there even when it's plastered over, and there are ways you can recognize it despite the glittering surface. Less wish fulfillment than cautionary tale. It's well done. Author Goebel (Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours via the deeply cool publisher FC2) has storytelling chops. He has very cool film scripts in his CV, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway in them. His current publisher is Kate Gale's always interesting and frequently tastemaking Red Hen Press. Given these bona fides why is this not a full-five review?
Because I got uneasy as I crested the halfway mark, feeling I was still outside Susie's world with my sarcastic voyeur of a guide being invited to laugh at and judge these buffoons. It's what they deserve! is implicit in each and every moment I'm in the story's flow. Which, fair—it is indeed what they deserve; but is it your point, Author Goebel, to stop there or is it to force me-the-reader into looking deep into the shine of these surfaces and ask myself "why are you still here with these tacky people." I didn't think it was terribly clear what your purpose was; the only reason that was an issue is its consequence of popping me out of the story-flow to examine the whole read again and again.
That's a big ask, but your story is a national bestseller so I guess it worked. I'm glad it did, and does, and will do the trick again in future.
Real Rating: 4.5* of five
The Publisher Says: A fever dream, Kill Dick is a literary thriller that plunges into the chaos of Los Angeles where addiction, privilege, and corruption combust.
At nineteen, Susie Vogelman should be she’s an NYU dropout with no responsibilities, endless prescription pills, and a Brentwood estate to waste away in. But Los Angeles has other plans. A string of brutal murders targeting addicts spreads through the city, and Susie’s ivory tower begins to crumble. The headlines point too close to her father’s ties to an opioid empire, a sinister secret society, and her own complicity in the systems holding it all together.
Then there’s Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor running a rehab scam so audacious it’s almost admirable. When their lives collide, Susie and Peter are dragged into a web of privilege, corruption, and violence, where every escape leads deeper into the rot.
Dark, satirical, and razor-sharp, Kill Dick is a modern literary thriller that unflinchingly dissects wealth, exploitation, and the perilous line between survival and self-destruction.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Health scammers, like Peter Holiday in this story, might be the lowest scum on this wide, green Earth. Preying on those desperate for their very lives...! My mother's father fell for the Laetrile scam in the 1970s. Luckily he survived more than a few years after it was exposed to all as a hoax, but it cemented my powerful disdain for health scammers as it was an expensive lesson. Fast-forward from my family's 1970s to Susie Vogelman, our PoV character, in a circle of hell called the glittering world of too-rich too-dimwitted 2016 LA.
What's worse than an addict without morals or boundaries? Worse even than an enabler of the addict? The addict turned enabler. Susie, who apparently never so much as once looked into a mirror that showed her anything except her surface, is a participant in a lot of different kinds of enabling in this story. It's very well done, it never lets the pace of revelations slacken, but it also never once shows even a glimmer of realization in Susie or her coterie of criminally negligent creeps. But their surfaces are pretty! And their credit cards are limitless!
I wanted to shake Susie into awareness of her hollowness, lest she implode causing still further damage. But Author Goebel is careful to make this world honest by giving it consequences despite no one in the cast being anything but appalling. Bad things are going to happen, and I didn't care about the consequences to any of the cast just to the folks who were victimized by the cast. The suppurating wounds of vapidity exacerbated by the absence of empathy (honestly, I'm not sure Susie in particular even has a theory of mind) in every character are never allowing anyone to escape dire consequences.
When they come I was deeply surprised to feel...sad is too strong, sympathetic is in the wrong emotional register, wistful is too kindly meant...to not feel triumphant? I think that's closer. I was eager for the comeuppances to be passed around, and Peter the scumbag to get seconds. After all, this was the moment that the country saw Trump installed in entirely the wrong kind of government housing. What use is fiction of not to redress horrifying imbalances?
Showing them to us, forcing us to see that the rot is there even when it's plastered over, and there are ways you can recognize it despite the glittering surface. Less wish fulfillment than cautionary tale. It's well done. Author Goebel (Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours via the deeply cool publisher FC2) has storytelling chops. He has very cool film scripts in his CV, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway in them. His current publisher is Kate Gale's always interesting and frequently tastemaking Red Hen Press. Given these bona fides why is this not a full-five review?
Because I got uneasy as I crested the halfway mark, feeling I was still outside Susie's world with my sarcastic voyeur of a guide being invited to laugh at and judge these buffoons. It's what they deserve! is implicit in each and every moment I'm in the story's flow. Which, fair—it is indeed what they deserve; but is it your point, Author Goebel, to stop there or is it to force me-the-reader into looking deep into the shine of these surfaces and ask myself "why are you still here with these tacky people." I didn't think it was terribly clear what your purpose was; the only reason that was an issue is its consequence of popping me out of the story-flow to examine the whole read again and again.
That's a big ask, but your story is a national bestseller so I guess it worked. I'm glad it did, and does, and will do the trick again in future.
March 26, 2026
Overwritten and underdeveloped. Not for me.
Read
February 1, 2026Kill Dick wastes no time. The novel opens on all that is the earthly beauty of sunny Cal- warm Santa Ana winds that touch the breath of Southern California trees, heavy with citrus fruit. From those first sentences how quickly the reader is brought into the disturbed under pinning that is felt through LA by way of the world of wealthy Marlborough graduate and NYU dropout Susie Vogelman. We find Susie lying by the pool in her Brentwood home, high on Oxycontin trying to keep herself deaf to the reality of the “orange haze of doom” in the form of horrific killings in the news and looming political events. Faking feeling fine in tinsel town. Outside of the book, just like in Susie’s world, even tourists can feel the same historic fakery of Los Angeles when they come looking for Hollywood— a symptom of a culture that hides its seedy unease behind pretty things. It is seen when walking the stars on a boulevard that has the remnants of the angst of an America that never quite got relieved from its anger and now lives in drug addled minds without homes while the influencers make videos and Mann’s Chinese Theater has another celebrity studded opening— everyone using something to feign relief. This addiction to anything in order to deal with America’s darkness is the contemporary world that Susie is a part of in the book.
The territory that author and screenwriter Luke Goebel explores may remind some readers of their memories of the noir world of the Big Sleep where author Raymond Chandler (also a screenwriter) saw the darkness in the sunniest city. But the searing reality of the LA streets in Kill Dick, Goebel’s second novel, is set in an unspecified period that seems to be right before the 2016 election — which indeed feels like right now, and you as the reader want the contemporary LA darkness to be shown. Because if you live in LA, or even somewhere else in America, you’ve always felt it. Finally we’ve been given a novel that plays out the fever dream that no one came for but is provided by the City of Angels for all who came to find a life of sunny dreams.
The novel is crude and disturbing at times, but there is no way you’re turning away once you open the cover. There are gut wrenching killings in the book happening to drug addicts all over Los Angeles as poor little rich girl Susie gets caught up in Oxycontin and her former professor’s quest to find his drug addicted brother. They are all aided by the caretaking femme fluid Royal-Lee, a 19 year old who seems all too gentle for any of the contents of the book. These characters along with Susie’s parents and a questionable “Church of White Illumination” are all tied together in ways you don’t see coming, as Dick Sickler, the billionaire creator of Oxy, is the man who knots together all the characters and their turmoil. They are all in some way dependent on Dick (or his creation) and maybe will stop at nothing to undo that dependancy. The novel is a reflection of the lingering demented darkness of Los Angeles, like the real life Cecil Hotel, a former home of serial murderers, and other seedy motels in which Goebel sets a series of killings.
The contents of Kill Dick and the experience of its characters could not actually be lived without it needing being purged from one’s system. And so the tale must come up and out as an intellectually dense narrative vomit of LA society, which is American society, which is the mess we inherited and are forced to digest through our lives. Goebel’s novel suggests we are unable to digest this America any longer. Goebel’s prose is crazed and calculated- driving you faster off a cliff you’re not really sure you want to go over but you stay for the ride because you have to see what happens. He’s changing lanes on the way, moving from first to third person narration, following different characters and intersecting timelines. We’ve seen it done before, perhaps best of all William Faulkner (also a screenwriter) but here in the world of Kill Dick this narrative technique brings turbulent movement to the story. Goebel’s book seems all too horrific and all too plausible all at once. He makes us wonder, is this narrative of graphic events and characters of grotesque archetypes that live in a war zone of capitalism actually happening in reality? And we’re left with the sickening feeling that possibly all of this did happen, potentially all of it will become future events, and most probably all of it is indeed happening in our current world.
The book moves quickly and slowly at the same time as if itself is a trip of Oxy. You feel asleep, you feel raw, you feel like you understand something no one else gets, you feel like you need more but sometimes get nothing from it, like Susie’s rambling intellectual clusterfuck of thoughts that lead to the minutiae movement in the plot. Reading this novel feels like what an addiction really feels like.
When you leave the novel, you feel profoundly sad. The themes are real- they are present right now- living in Skid Row, living in LA, living in America. All this questioning of what is real in our culture and politics, what is truth, dwells in this novelization about a time that is all too present and speaks honesty more radically than what Goebel calls “the Orange candidate” could ever tweet. Maybe that’s why you feel sad, because you are finally confronted with the totality that we feel up against as individual human beings in a culture and a politics that itself tries to pretend it isn’t there. We all are exhausted from publicly playing along like everything that you see wrong with society is actually just fine. Yet all that’s wrong is right there in the book. Kill Dick is not an antithesis to a Holy book but a book of what the stories of Jesus’s miracles would look like today- only without Jesus there.
Or is he there? Meaning: is Kill Dick a more accurate depiction of what transformation really is? It’s not glamorous, it’s fucked up on the way there, and no one really sees the change, it just is- like the many bodies that precious Royal-Lee kneels over, wondering if they have indeed OD’d- can you tell? Or is the transformation so private that it is between the characters and Jesus, and we have no business in judging how they get there and what it looks like. Besides, what are you the reader doing about people silently dying in the streets, or anything that you can say “aww that’s awful” before you swipe away? Kill Dick inadvertently asks you to see your judgement, and asks “how about you” without judgement cause it’s a just novel…right? Maybe it is a Holy book after all.
‘A terrible beauty,’ is the phrase I think of every time I look at an LA sunset that is like a darkened rainbow made so by the pollution that hangs in the air. LA is America’s terrible beauty, and America is the hope of democracy’s terrible beauty and Kill Dick is the art that comes from almost unthinkable pain stemmed from that empire of capitalistic democracy- what a terrible beauty.
This book’s terrible beauty is a representation of all the pain that has brought all of us here- the drive of every form of addiction: from Oxy, to buying vintage Continentals, to power, to chasing after the perfect image which is the terrible beauty of all of the above. Kill Dick is the pain swirling in a sea of confusion and love and loneliness and desperation to feel connected to something deeper that maybe we only get on the other side of death. But the feeling you get at the end of this book is that maybe, just maybe after we destroy the Dicks of our addictions we can still find that connection on this side, in life. That would be a wonderful beauty.
The territory that author and screenwriter Luke Goebel explores may remind some readers of their memories of the noir world of the Big Sleep where author Raymond Chandler (also a screenwriter) saw the darkness in the sunniest city. But the searing reality of the LA streets in Kill Dick, Goebel’s second novel, is set in an unspecified period that seems to be right before the 2016 election — which indeed feels like right now, and you as the reader want the contemporary LA darkness to be shown. Because if you live in LA, or even somewhere else in America, you’ve always felt it. Finally we’ve been given a novel that plays out the fever dream that no one came for but is provided by the City of Angels for all who came to find a life of sunny dreams.
The novel is crude and disturbing at times, but there is no way you’re turning away once you open the cover. There are gut wrenching killings in the book happening to drug addicts all over Los Angeles as poor little rich girl Susie gets caught up in Oxycontin and her former professor’s quest to find his drug addicted brother. They are all aided by the caretaking femme fluid Royal-Lee, a 19 year old who seems all too gentle for any of the contents of the book. These characters along with Susie’s parents and a questionable “Church of White Illumination” are all tied together in ways you don’t see coming, as Dick Sickler, the billionaire creator of Oxy, is the man who knots together all the characters and their turmoil. They are all in some way dependent on Dick (or his creation) and maybe will stop at nothing to undo that dependancy. The novel is a reflection of the lingering demented darkness of Los Angeles, like the real life Cecil Hotel, a former home of serial murderers, and other seedy motels in which Goebel sets a series of killings.
The contents of Kill Dick and the experience of its characters could not actually be lived without it needing being purged from one’s system. And so the tale must come up and out as an intellectually dense narrative vomit of LA society, which is American society, which is the mess we inherited and are forced to digest through our lives. Goebel’s novel suggests we are unable to digest this America any longer. Goebel’s prose is crazed and calculated- driving you faster off a cliff you’re not really sure you want to go over but you stay for the ride because you have to see what happens. He’s changing lanes on the way, moving from first to third person narration, following different characters and intersecting timelines. We’ve seen it done before, perhaps best of all William Faulkner (also a screenwriter) but here in the world of Kill Dick this narrative technique brings turbulent movement to the story. Goebel’s book seems all too horrific and all too plausible all at once. He makes us wonder, is this narrative of graphic events and characters of grotesque archetypes that live in a war zone of capitalism actually happening in reality? And we’re left with the sickening feeling that possibly all of this did happen, potentially all of it will become future events, and most probably all of it is indeed happening in our current world.
The book moves quickly and slowly at the same time as if itself is a trip of Oxy. You feel asleep, you feel raw, you feel like you understand something no one else gets, you feel like you need more but sometimes get nothing from it, like Susie’s rambling intellectual clusterfuck of thoughts that lead to the minutiae movement in the plot. Reading this novel feels like what an addiction really feels like.
When you leave the novel, you feel profoundly sad. The themes are real- they are present right now- living in Skid Row, living in LA, living in America. All this questioning of what is real in our culture and politics, what is truth, dwells in this novelization about a time that is all too present and speaks honesty more radically than what Goebel calls “the Orange candidate” could ever tweet. Maybe that’s why you feel sad, because you are finally confronted with the totality that we feel up against as individual human beings in a culture and a politics that itself tries to pretend it isn’t there. We all are exhausted from publicly playing along like everything that you see wrong with society is actually just fine. Yet all that’s wrong is right there in the book. Kill Dick is not an antithesis to a Holy book but a book of what the stories of Jesus’s miracles would look like today- only without Jesus there.
Or is he there? Meaning: is Kill Dick a more accurate depiction of what transformation really is? It’s not glamorous, it’s fucked up on the way there, and no one really sees the change, it just is- like the many bodies that precious Royal-Lee kneels over, wondering if they have indeed OD’d- can you tell? Or is the transformation so private that it is between the characters and Jesus, and we have no business in judging how they get there and what it looks like. Besides, what are you the reader doing about people silently dying in the streets, or anything that you can say “aww that’s awful” before you swipe away? Kill Dick inadvertently asks you to see your judgement, and asks “how about you” without judgement cause it’s a just novel…right? Maybe it is a Holy book after all.
‘A terrible beauty,’ is the phrase I think of every time I look at an LA sunset that is like a darkened rainbow made so by the pollution that hangs in the air. LA is America’s terrible beauty, and America is the hope of democracy’s terrible beauty and Kill Dick is the art that comes from almost unthinkable pain stemmed from that empire of capitalistic democracy- what a terrible beauty.
This book’s terrible beauty is a representation of all the pain that has brought all of us here- the drive of every form of addiction: from Oxy, to buying vintage Continentals, to power, to chasing after the perfect image which is the terrible beauty of all of the above. Kill Dick is the pain swirling in a sea of confusion and love and loneliness and desperation to feel connected to something deeper that maybe we only get on the other side of death. But the feeling you get at the end of this book is that maybe, just maybe after we destroy the Dicks of our addictions we can still find that connection on this side, in life. That would be a wonderful beauty.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Kill Dick by Luke Goebel has everything that makes up L.A. as it is derogatorily known, and a lot of what makes the worst parts of humanity that we know of, now more than ever, to be despicably common to humanity.
Crude, corrupt, greedy, addicted, and unabashed; That sums up the qualities of about everyone that NYU dropout Susie is surrounded by, alongside other numerous accusations that could potentially be volleyed against them in a court of law. Allegedly.
Strung out and strung along, our main protagonist Susie is, both voluntarily and involuntarily, tangentially involved in countless conspiracies, secret societies, corrupt operations, fraudulent fronts, drug circles, murder sprees, etc. etc. and they are all bubbling up in her gut and in her real life concurrently like magma in a filling volcano that is quite ready to erupt and cause certain destruction, both en masse and inevitably of its own as well.
Goebel, alongside a lot of cringingly crude and questionably funky moments, inserts a decent amount of satirical and topical societal commentary, which despite the novel being set during the 2016 presidential election, are still quite applicable in our current day, given the many obvious parallels.
This book itself, and a book by a man especially, really isn’t something I would typically expect myself to have been into, but I ultimately found myself repeatedly respecting the novel’s biting commentary, ability to call itself out on its privilege, and the feat of the inclusions of grossness and dark reality not feeling like merely cheap shock factor, a shallow tactic I am finding increasingly common among media these days.
If you are into something with the kooky relationship dynamics of Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash (though admittedly that one is not my favorite), the trippy concocted conspiracies of Kurt Vonnegut (could be deemed hit or miss), and the dark and layered realities occurring under the “Orange Candidate’s” early first term (dreadful) check this one out when it publishes April 14th! Thank you Red Hen Press and @coolgirlsreadingbooks for sending me an early copy <3
Crude, corrupt, greedy, addicted, and unabashed; That sums up the qualities of about everyone that NYU dropout Susie is surrounded by, alongside other numerous accusations that could potentially be volleyed against them in a court of law. Allegedly.
Strung out and strung along, our main protagonist Susie is, both voluntarily and involuntarily, tangentially involved in countless conspiracies, secret societies, corrupt operations, fraudulent fronts, drug circles, murder sprees, etc. etc. and they are all bubbling up in her gut and in her real life concurrently like magma in a filling volcano that is quite ready to erupt and cause certain destruction, both en masse and inevitably of its own as well.
Goebel, alongside a lot of cringingly crude and questionably funky moments, inserts a decent amount of satirical and topical societal commentary, which despite the novel being set during the 2016 presidential election, are still quite applicable in our current day, given the many obvious parallels.
This book itself, and a book by a man especially, really isn’t something I would typically expect myself to have been into, but I ultimately found myself repeatedly respecting the novel’s biting commentary, ability to call itself out on its privilege, and the feat of the inclusions of grossness and dark reality not feeling like merely cheap shock factor, a shallow tactic I am finding increasingly common among media these days.
If you are into something with the kooky relationship dynamics of Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash (though admittedly that one is not my favorite), the trippy concocted conspiracies of Kurt Vonnegut (could be deemed hit or miss), and the dark and layered realities occurring under the “Orange Candidate’s” early first term (dreadful) check this one out when it publishes April 14th! Thank you Red Hen Press and @coolgirlsreadingbooks for sending me an early copy <3
May 13, 2026
My Selling Pitch:
Imagine talking LA politics with a man who oh so genuinely believes Euphoria season 3 is a triumph. Now let him write an unreliable narrator “feminist” thriller. Exactly.
Spiritually on my do not read list, but I think it’s important to read perspectives you don’t agree with, so you better understand what you do believe in, and this book’s great for that.
Pre-reading:
I liked the Eileen movie, and this is satire by its writer, so I'm excited to check this out. porn.
(obviously potential spoilers from here on)
Thick of it:
The audacity of men describing women’s breasts.
God, I love Clueless.
This is so aggressively male writer, and I’m not having a good time. The flower was asking for it???? Like my guy
I’m at DNF. Like this has to be satire of men writing, but it’s actually racist and misogynistic and insufferable.
Her mouth felt like colonialists is a crazy thing to write.
I feel like some man said I can totally write My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I’ll just set it in LA starring Cher. (Lmao so he is her ex-husband and everything makes sense.)
Can her dad smell her pussy. Oh, I’m so over this.
I don’t think all men want that. It’s okay if he wants that, but he doesn’t speak for all men.
Why are Hilary Clinton, Mariah Carey, and Jennifer Aniston of all people catching strays for not being beautiful enough in this book? I. Hate. It. Here.
I bet this author lovessss Euphoria.
This is doing the American Psycho thing with the brands.
I really hate when books inadvertently suggest people are gay or trans because they were raped as a kid.
I went back and restarted because it had been a minute, and the book is much better if you read it. The audiobook is missing a LOT of tone and rhythm. The formatting doesn't help because it's stream of consciousness colliding with reality and the audiobook doesn't differentiate them and the absent paragraph breaks or italics don’t help that either.
I think this book’s genuinely good writing is getting overshadowed by the author’s weird fetish. There's the all girls with daddy issues want to fuck their dad mindset, and like women want attention from men or they'll die, and genuinely asking whether they should just trade sex to get the emotional connection they want because how could it be a fair trade otherwise, and it's ticking me off. It’s very I have a female main character so I’m a feminist, see! but then her introduction is a shot of her toes, and you know exactly what kind of man he is.
It's so West Coast, and I'm so firmly East Coast. I don’t feel bad for rich, sunbaked zombies who create their own problems. Gimme cold and bitter any day.
It's just coming off that he’s jealous of women because they get the attention from men that he wants. And it's like my brother in christ, pull your head out of your ass. Think beyond your prostate, I’m begging.
Just- How does it not sound tone deaf to you, as a male writer, to have a female character wonder about how she can best demonstrate the new female gaze? It's not your gaze! You fundamentally will not understand it.
The pretentious narrative reminds me a lot of A Certain Hunger’s voice.
Into a bullhorn, fuck your religion. At least he’s getting that right.
You know, the second I compliment him, he’s back doing some male author shit™. Thanks for clarifying you weren’t talking about fucking the horse. Literally no one was thinking that.
Hello Lana Del Rey
She better not be snipping nipples off to make a bouquet. (I truly don’t know what we were doing with the murders in this book.)
All the fashion name drops keep reminding me of American Psycho.
Maybe I’m too sober for this book. I don’t do drugs. They hold no appeal for me. I don’t understand them.
I'm so sick of books including child sexual trauma and having their characters wonder if that's why they're gay. Like that’s not even suggesting poisonous right wing rhetoric anymore, that’s outright reinforcing it.
I would like to dnf again. But Samantha maybe it’s just the character’s warped mindset! Why is THIS the character you wanna portray so repetitively? Do you think the most interesting thing you can do is have a character ruminate on right wing rhetoric and suggest that it’s correct? Do you think it makes you cool and edgy? Do you think it makes you a fearless writer? You sound like a twat.
But then this book is so frustrating because I do like the phrase ‘he wanted to be like someone with their finger on God’s abs.’ That’s banger. That’s great.
The last thing the world needs is more men who think they're gods.
All I can do is heavy sigh about this book. It’s 9 in the morning. This is another one of his female characters who exists only to assist men and is addicted to plastic surgery. And her big claim is that a person creates his own reality, so any history he thinks he knows about the world is something he himself has dreamed up, so it’s actually a moral failing on his part for suggesting that rape and incest exist because he’s the one creating them by believing in them. And I’m just really frustrated at the victim blaming and the language in this book, and I’ve wanted to DNF it multiple times now. I won’t. I’m a literary masochist. But you’re gonna have to listen to me keep bitching about it.
This shit’s racist and offensive and not an interesting thought experiment. It's very white man got high and thinks everything he's ever thought is a valuable insight and gift to humanity, and I’m fucking tired.
The worst people in the world are obsessed with the ortolans. Eating an entire bird is weird as shit, and it’s weird as shit that you’re fixated on it. It works excellently in Hannibal. It doesn’t belong here.
He can’t even keep the voice consistent across characters because he had to do his little teehee, I wasn’t talking about fucking the horse, and now his therapist is saying lol, I wasn’t talking about the bird. I was talking about the people. Like no fucking shit. It’s the door to the microwave meme. I’m sure you can argue that the voice inconsistencies are lending credence to his reality is fake and other people are just shades of you that you’ve invented so of course they have your voice, but I think it’s actually just bad writing.
You need such a broad education to get all the references in this book.
This entire book is just the Sabrina Carpenter “I promise the mushrooms aren’t changing your life” line.
Mr. Rogers catching strays a second time!
Women don't owe you shit.
While I love these particular fashion descriptions, I think a lot of this is a West Coast problem. It's very Selena and Benny.
Hold on tight, spider monkey. (I need to be shot.)
Dude, the diction is so jarring because they’re pulling out every SAT word you can possibly think of and then they’re like lol suck his rod! (Not a negative, just an observation.)
You know, I love a live laugh lobotomy joke, but I don’t like when men make them.
I hate it here. Dr. Seuss literal shit.
I need it to stop talking about shit in such graphic detail, or I’m gonna vom. This is disgusting.
I do not think of the 80s as particularly masculine. I think of the 80s as loud, but I guess loudness translates more to masculinity traditionally.
Olivie Blake’s Girl Dinner and Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend gets the bitches/dogs feminist argument. This man doesn't. He hasn't graduated past the resentment that women can profit off their looks, and you can HEAR it in his writing even when he thinks he's being feminist.
Jealous of the East Coast AND YOU SHOULD BE.
Look, you can't hit people, but I don’t think it’s crazy for him to not want his daughter on drugs???
She's giving us details about the murders that she couldnt know unless she saw them, so I’m so curious as to how she's connected. I genuinely have no guess as to whodunnit. Other than maybe his brother but that wouldn't make sense.
It's not sexy. You're warped.
Why is he so preoccupied with the dad fucking his daughter? Men can interact with women without it being sexual. Maybe he can't but normal people can!
I just don’t think any woman is worried about becoming a eunech.
Hello Bateman.
Oooo. To be fair. I did not see the conduit being Susie’s mom. That was a good twist.
Responsible women do care which candidate wins.
I'm so tired of the bodily functions.
I mean that is exactly the voice of this novel, and I hate it.
Don’t disrespect corgis like that.
I know it’s only a few years removed, but the political criticisms still feel outdated.
Saying Skid Row is like Coachella is such an irresponsible romanticization of a tragedy.
I do love The Secret History.
Detritus sin
It’s the last place rich people don’t own to can we (rich people) buy them? I don’t like this book at all.
I do like that the book acknowledges your outrage and has the balls to call your bluff. Like what are you actually gonna do about it? Read more? That was good. I liked that.
There’s so much poop in this book.
I’m getting pretty annoyed that this book is going so over the top with the lizard people conspiracies when it’s also name dropping Epstein. That’s not conspiracy. That all happened. I’m sure you can argue that it’s to illustrate how politicians do distract from the facts at hand with something so outlandish that the common people just write everything off, but I think it’s in poor taste.
Unfortunately, I have not figured out dick. I don’t know what I’m supposed to have realized about Susie or the story as a whole. I hope the book makes it more explicit. I’m not getting it. (It doesn't!)
Yeah, so I don’t get it at all. I don’t know who the killer is. I don’t know who killed Dick. I don’t know where her mother was.
He just reads like the most performative male who genuinely believes you can’t create art or say you’ve experienced life if you’ve never gotten high. Not everyone needs a pharmaceutical crutch to activate their imagination. And just so much of this reads misogynistic, but not in a women are beneath me way. You just sound fucking jealous. Come to terms with your gender identity or your sexuality and leave them out of it. No one relevant cares if you’re a man or a woman or something in between. It’s the least interesting thing about you.
Homie wants to be American Psycho so bad. Homie wants to be Tarantino so bad. This reads like Euphoria season three. It’s that bad.
Post-reading:
I love how bad lit fic always feels like an inescapable dinner party conversation with the worst person you know. The book’s a swing and a miss, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have style. It oozes presence, it wants a drag out dog fight, it’s lecherous. It’s gonna make you want a shower. If you have functioning feminist critical thought, you’re gonna clock this wannabe immediately. Equal opportunity for female sociopathy, but I know exactly what kind of man you are when you open with a teenaged toe wiggle. And that sour taste is unfortunately never gonna leave your mouth even as the narrative scrambles to unravel into something resembling intrigue. But if you scratch at it, you’ll quickly realize it’s borrowed schticks from writers who have been there done that. Homeboy wants to be Brett Easton Ellis so bad! You can’t dump in empty fashion references and Phil Collins if your satire is the equivalent of an ennui nibble! The whole thing is anesthetized! And I can hear you, Samantha, isn’t that the point? Shouldn’t a drugged fever dream feel that hazy? And it should, if that was one consistent narrative voice of the novel. But this is supposed to be a multi POV. Characters should have different voices from each other, and they don’t. A malicious Cher, a protester turned professor, and a nonbinary street kid shouldn’t sound identical to each other. They don’t have the same educations or backgrounds yet they speak with the same vocabularies, interests, and political agendas. It’s not a psychological horror flair to illustrate this book’s cultish manifesto that reality is constructed and every person encountered is an NPC, even when you pass it through the lens of this is Susie’s story and can we really believe her? I think the author’s just as full of shit as she is. Literally! I’ve never read so much about pooping and farting in my life.
The political commentary felt like a temper tantrum rather than a valuable critique. I think it’s incredibly telling when you’re preoccupied with tearing down the appearance of female celebrities as if that’s fair recompense for bad policy, meanwhile, their male counterparts get cheeky nicknames. Incest isn’t a shortcut to provocative writing. If anything, it’s cheap, lazy, and overused. I think it’s a klaxon blare of written by a man because what 19-year-old do you know that’s pondering her ‘cheap carnation nipples’ poolside and in the next breath worrying if daddy, her real daddy, can smell her pussy?
One thing this book does do well is feel distinctly West Coast. She is viciously envious of NYC and New England, and you know, as she should be. Gimmie frosty educated winters over vapid, sun baked pavement any day.
It’s such a misogynistic book, but it’s almost a backhanded compliment. The commentary reads as jealous of women, of their bodies, and their sexuality, and their perceived power over men. Which like, hoo baby, get a grip! Make peace with your prostate. There’s plenty of boyfriends to go around for everyone. I think the gender identity confusion is too fetishized to be insightful. Everything’s about getting laid and neglectful of other aspects of dysphoria.
It’s just such a weird choice to me to want to write an unhinged woman so you can showcase the artistic female gaze when you’re a man. Because you just won’t get it. You fundamentally cannot get it. That’s the point. An approximation is never gonna read as authentic which is thematically LA, but I’m an east coast reader and that’s pretty much the antithesis of what I wanna see in fiction. Create something so believable I forget that it’s fake, or lean in, and this book fails to do either.
The thriller plotline kept me reading even after the book had disgusted me past the point of no return, but it just fizzles out. I truly, truly don’t think I’m a stupid reader, but this book’s too ambiguous to make sense or satisfy. I still don’t know who the main killer was, I don’t know where her mom got off to, and I don’t know who killed Dick, and when that’s the goddamn title of your novel- Like how can you not view that as a fundamental failing? Not every book is for every reader, but the average audience member better be able to finish your book with an understanding of the core message or something’s wrong!
I hated it. I don’t get. I don’t think you will either, but I hesitate to say you shouldn’t read it. I think it’s really important to read perspectives and beliefs that are different from your own. I think it helps you cement and better articulate what you do believe in. I think it’s part of being an educated, critical consumer. If you love art, you wanna talk about what makes it good vs what makes it bad, and I don’t think you’re picking up satirical political lit fic on a whim. You’re already not a casual reader by merit of the genre itself. You want to think, and this book will definitely get you doing that, I just wish it were in a more positive way.
Also, not the book’s fault at all, but I think the audiobook performance for this is horrendous. It misses so much tonal inflection that it was distorting the book into word salad nonsense. I turned it off and restarted and had a much better time reading in my head
Who should read this:
Social satire fans
American Psycho fans
LA as a vibe readers
Political commentary fans
Ideal reading time:
Election season
Do I want to reread this:
On my own, no, but I’d be down to dissect it with a book club
Would I buy this:
Nope
Similar books:
* Murder Bimbo by Rebecca Novack-political satire, unreliable narrator, revenge thriller
* A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers-lit fic, satire, revenge thriller, queer
* American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis-lit fic, psychological horror, satire, social commentary, queer
* Soft Core by Brittany Newell-lit fic, psychological horror, social commentary, queer
* Maeve Fly by C. J. Leede-lit fic, horror, retelling, social commentary
* Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon-lit fic, myth retelling, social commentary, family drama, addiction
* My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh-lit fic, social commentary, addiction
* Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash-campy lit fic, thriller, family drama, social commentary
* Happiness and Love by Zoe Dubno-lit fic, social commentary
* Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter-lit fic, psychological horror, satire, social commentary, family drama
* Mood Swings by Frankie Barnet-dystopian, lit fic, social commentary
* Sirens and Muses by Antonia Angress-lit fic, academia, queer, social commentary
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Imagine talking LA politics with a man who oh so genuinely believes Euphoria season 3 is a triumph. Now let him write an unreliable narrator “feminist” thriller. Exactly.
Spiritually on my do not read list, but I think it’s important to read perspectives you don’t agree with, so you better understand what you do believe in, and this book’s great for that.
Pre-reading:
I liked the Eileen movie, and this is satire by its writer, so I'm excited to check this out. porn.
(obviously potential spoilers from here on)
Thick of it:
The audacity of men describing women’s breasts.
God, I love Clueless.
This is so aggressively male writer, and I’m not having a good time. The flower was asking for it???? Like my guy
I’m at DNF. Like this has to be satire of men writing, but it’s actually racist and misogynistic and insufferable.
Her mouth felt like colonialists is a crazy thing to write.
I feel like some man said I can totally write My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I’ll just set it in LA starring Cher. (Lmao so he is her ex-husband and everything makes sense.)
Can her dad smell her pussy. Oh, I’m so over this.
I don’t think all men want that. It’s okay if he wants that, but he doesn’t speak for all men.
Why are Hilary Clinton, Mariah Carey, and Jennifer Aniston of all people catching strays for not being beautiful enough in this book? I. Hate. It. Here.
I bet this author lovessss Euphoria.
This is doing the American Psycho thing with the brands.
I really hate when books inadvertently suggest people are gay or trans because they were raped as a kid.
I went back and restarted because it had been a minute, and the book is much better if you read it. The audiobook is missing a LOT of tone and rhythm. The formatting doesn't help because it's stream of consciousness colliding with reality and the audiobook doesn't differentiate them and the absent paragraph breaks or italics don’t help that either.
I think this book’s genuinely good writing is getting overshadowed by the author’s weird fetish. There's the all girls with daddy issues want to fuck their dad mindset, and like women want attention from men or they'll die, and genuinely asking whether they should just trade sex to get the emotional connection they want because how could it be a fair trade otherwise, and it's ticking me off. It’s very I have a female main character so I’m a feminist, see! but then her introduction is a shot of her toes, and you know exactly what kind of man he is.
It's so West Coast, and I'm so firmly East Coast. I don’t feel bad for rich, sunbaked zombies who create their own problems. Gimme cold and bitter any day.
It's just coming off that he’s jealous of women because they get the attention from men that he wants. And it's like my brother in christ, pull your head out of your ass. Think beyond your prostate, I’m begging.
Just- How does it not sound tone deaf to you, as a male writer, to have a female character wonder about how she can best demonstrate the new female gaze? It's not your gaze! You fundamentally will not understand it.
The pretentious narrative reminds me a lot of A Certain Hunger’s voice.
Into a bullhorn, fuck your religion. At least he’s getting that right.
You know, the second I compliment him, he’s back doing some male author shit™. Thanks for clarifying you weren’t talking about fucking the horse. Literally no one was thinking that.
Hello Lana Del Rey
She better not be snipping nipples off to make a bouquet. (I truly don’t know what we were doing with the murders in this book.)
All the fashion name drops keep reminding me of American Psycho.
Maybe I’m too sober for this book. I don’t do drugs. They hold no appeal for me. I don’t understand them.
I'm so sick of books including child sexual trauma and having their characters wonder if that's why they're gay. Like that’s not even suggesting poisonous right wing rhetoric anymore, that’s outright reinforcing it.
I would like to dnf again. But Samantha maybe it’s just the character’s warped mindset! Why is THIS the character you wanna portray so repetitively? Do you think the most interesting thing you can do is have a character ruminate on right wing rhetoric and suggest that it’s correct? Do you think it makes you cool and edgy? Do you think it makes you a fearless writer? You sound like a twat.
But then this book is so frustrating because I do like the phrase ‘he wanted to be like someone with their finger on God’s abs.’ That’s banger. That’s great.
The last thing the world needs is more men who think they're gods.
All I can do is heavy sigh about this book. It’s 9 in the morning. This is another one of his female characters who exists only to assist men and is addicted to plastic surgery. And her big claim is that a person creates his own reality, so any history he thinks he knows about the world is something he himself has dreamed up, so it’s actually a moral failing on his part for suggesting that rape and incest exist because he’s the one creating them by believing in them. And I’m just really frustrated at the victim blaming and the language in this book, and I’ve wanted to DNF it multiple times now. I won’t. I’m a literary masochist. But you’re gonna have to listen to me keep bitching about it.
This shit’s racist and offensive and not an interesting thought experiment. It's very white man got high and thinks everything he's ever thought is a valuable insight and gift to humanity, and I’m fucking tired.
The worst people in the world are obsessed with the ortolans. Eating an entire bird is weird as shit, and it’s weird as shit that you’re fixated on it. It works excellently in Hannibal. It doesn’t belong here.
He can’t even keep the voice consistent across characters because he had to do his little teehee, I wasn’t talking about fucking the horse, and now his therapist is saying lol, I wasn’t talking about the bird. I was talking about the people. Like no fucking shit. It’s the door to the microwave meme. I’m sure you can argue that the voice inconsistencies are lending credence to his reality is fake and other people are just shades of you that you’ve invented so of course they have your voice, but I think it’s actually just bad writing.
You need such a broad education to get all the references in this book.
This entire book is just the Sabrina Carpenter “I promise the mushrooms aren’t changing your life” line.
Mr. Rogers catching strays a second time!
Women don't owe you shit.
While I love these particular fashion descriptions, I think a lot of this is a West Coast problem. It's very Selena and Benny.
Hold on tight, spider monkey. (I need to be shot.)
Dude, the diction is so jarring because they’re pulling out every SAT word you can possibly think of and then they’re like lol suck his rod! (Not a negative, just an observation.)
You know, I love a live laugh lobotomy joke, but I don’t like when men make them.
I hate it here. Dr. Seuss literal shit.
I need it to stop talking about shit in such graphic detail, or I’m gonna vom. This is disgusting.
I do not think of the 80s as particularly masculine. I think of the 80s as loud, but I guess loudness translates more to masculinity traditionally.
Olivie Blake’s Girl Dinner and Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend gets the bitches/dogs feminist argument. This man doesn't. He hasn't graduated past the resentment that women can profit off their looks, and you can HEAR it in his writing even when he thinks he's being feminist.
Jealous of the East Coast AND YOU SHOULD BE.
Look, you can't hit people, but I don’t think it’s crazy for him to not want his daughter on drugs???
She's giving us details about the murders that she couldnt know unless she saw them, so I’m so curious as to how she's connected. I genuinely have no guess as to whodunnit. Other than maybe his brother but that wouldn't make sense.
It's not sexy. You're warped.
Why is he so preoccupied with the dad fucking his daughter? Men can interact with women without it being sexual. Maybe he can't but normal people can!
I just don’t think any woman is worried about becoming a eunech.
Hello Bateman.
Oooo. To be fair. I did not see the conduit being Susie’s mom. That was a good twist.
Responsible women do care which candidate wins.
I'm so tired of the bodily functions.
I mean that is exactly the voice of this novel, and I hate it.
Don’t disrespect corgis like that.
I know it’s only a few years removed, but the political criticisms still feel outdated.
Saying Skid Row is like Coachella is such an irresponsible romanticization of a tragedy.
I do love The Secret History.
Detritus sin
It’s the last place rich people don’t own to can we (rich people) buy them? I don’t like this book at all.
I do like that the book acknowledges your outrage and has the balls to call your bluff. Like what are you actually gonna do about it? Read more? That was good. I liked that.
There’s so much poop in this book.
I’m getting pretty annoyed that this book is going so over the top with the lizard people conspiracies when it’s also name dropping Epstein. That’s not conspiracy. That all happened. I’m sure you can argue that it’s to illustrate how politicians do distract from the facts at hand with something so outlandish that the common people just write everything off, but I think it’s in poor taste.
Unfortunately, I have not figured out dick. I don’t know what I’m supposed to have realized about Susie or the story as a whole. I hope the book makes it more explicit. I’m not getting it. (It doesn't!)
Yeah, so I don’t get it at all. I don’t know who the killer is. I don’t know who killed Dick. I don’t know where her mother was.
He just reads like the most performative male who genuinely believes you can’t create art or say you’ve experienced life if you’ve never gotten high. Not everyone needs a pharmaceutical crutch to activate their imagination. And just so much of this reads misogynistic, but not in a women are beneath me way. You just sound fucking jealous. Come to terms with your gender identity or your sexuality and leave them out of it. No one relevant cares if you’re a man or a woman or something in between. It’s the least interesting thing about you.
Homie wants to be American Psycho so bad. Homie wants to be Tarantino so bad. This reads like Euphoria season three. It’s that bad.
Post-reading:
I love how bad lit fic always feels like an inescapable dinner party conversation with the worst person you know. The book’s a swing and a miss, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have style. It oozes presence, it wants a drag out dog fight, it’s lecherous. It’s gonna make you want a shower. If you have functioning feminist critical thought, you’re gonna clock this wannabe immediately. Equal opportunity for female sociopathy, but I know exactly what kind of man you are when you open with a teenaged toe wiggle. And that sour taste is unfortunately never gonna leave your mouth even as the narrative scrambles to unravel into something resembling intrigue. But if you scratch at it, you’ll quickly realize it’s borrowed schticks from writers who have been there done that. Homeboy wants to be Brett Easton Ellis so bad! You can’t dump in empty fashion references and Phil Collins if your satire is the equivalent of an ennui nibble! The whole thing is anesthetized! And I can hear you, Samantha, isn’t that the point? Shouldn’t a drugged fever dream feel that hazy? And it should, if that was one consistent narrative voice of the novel. But this is supposed to be a multi POV. Characters should have different voices from each other, and they don’t. A malicious Cher, a protester turned professor, and a nonbinary street kid shouldn’t sound identical to each other. They don’t have the same educations or backgrounds yet they speak with the same vocabularies, interests, and political agendas. It’s not a psychological horror flair to illustrate this book’s cultish manifesto that reality is constructed and every person encountered is an NPC, even when you pass it through the lens of this is Susie’s story and can we really believe her? I think the author’s just as full of shit as she is. Literally! I’ve never read so much about pooping and farting in my life.
The political commentary felt like a temper tantrum rather than a valuable critique. I think it’s incredibly telling when you’re preoccupied with tearing down the appearance of female celebrities as if that’s fair recompense for bad policy, meanwhile, their male counterparts get cheeky nicknames. Incest isn’t a shortcut to provocative writing. If anything, it’s cheap, lazy, and overused. I think it’s a klaxon blare of written by a man because what 19-year-old do you know that’s pondering her ‘cheap carnation nipples’ poolside and in the next breath worrying if daddy, her real daddy, can smell her pussy?
One thing this book does do well is feel distinctly West Coast. She is viciously envious of NYC and New England, and you know, as she should be. Gimmie frosty educated winters over vapid, sun baked pavement any day.
It’s such a misogynistic book, but it’s almost a backhanded compliment. The commentary reads as jealous of women, of their bodies, and their sexuality, and their perceived power over men. Which like, hoo baby, get a grip! Make peace with your prostate. There’s plenty of boyfriends to go around for everyone. I think the gender identity confusion is too fetishized to be insightful. Everything’s about getting laid and neglectful of other aspects of dysphoria.
It’s just such a weird choice to me to want to write an unhinged woman so you can showcase the artistic female gaze when you’re a man. Because you just won’t get it. You fundamentally cannot get it. That’s the point. An approximation is never gonna read as authentic which is thematically LA, but I’m an east coast reader and that’s pretty much the antithesis of what I wanna see in fiction. Create something so believable I forget that it’s fake, or lean in, and this book fails to do either.
The thriller plotline kept me reading even after the book had disgusted me past the point of no return, but it just fizzles out. I truly, truly don’t think I’m a stupid reader, but this book’s too ambiguous to make sense or satisfy. I still don’t know who the main killer was, I don’t know where her mom got off to, and I don’t know who killed Dick, and when that’s the goddamn title of your novel- Like how can you not view that as a fundamental failing? Not every book is for every reader, but the average audience member better be able to finish your book with an understanding of the core message or something’s wrong!
I hated it. I don’t get. I don’t think you will either, but I hesitate to say you shouldn’t read it. I think it’s really important to read perspectives and beliefs that are different from your own. I think it helps you cement and better articulate what you do believe in. I think it’s part of being an educated, critical consumer. If you love art, you wanna talk about what makes it good vs what makes it bad, and I don’t think you’re picking up satirical political lit fic on a whim. You’re already not a casual reader by merit of the genre itself. You want to think, and this book will definitely get you doing that, I just wish it were in a more positive way.
Also, not the book’s fault at all, but I think the audiobook performance for this is horrendous. It misses so much tonal inflection that it was distorting the book into word salad nonsense. I turned it off and restarted and had a much better time reading in my head
Who should read this:
Social satire fans
American Psycho fans
LA as a vibe readers
Political commentary fans
Ideal reading time:
Election season
Do I want to reread this:
On my own, no, but I’d be down to dissect it with a book club
Would I buy this:
Nope
Similar books:
* Murder Bimbo by Rebecca Novack-political satire, unreliable narrator, revenge thriller
* A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers-lit fic, satire, revenge thriller, queer
* American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis-lit fic, psychological horror, satire, social commentary, queer
* Soft Core by Brittany Newell-lit fic, psychological horror, social commentary, queer
* Maeve Fly by C. J. Leede-lit fic, horror, retelling, social commentary
* Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon-lit fic, myth retelling, social commentary, family drama, addiction
* My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh-lit fic, social commentary, addiction
* Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash-campy lit fic, thriller, family drama, social commentary
* Happiness and Love by Zoe Dubno-lit fic, social commentary
* Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter-lit fic, psychological horror, satire, social commentary, family drama
* Mood Swings by Frankie Barnet-dystopian, lit fic, social commentary
* Sirens and Muses by Antonia Angress-lit fic, academia, queer, social commentary
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Read
April 14, 2026Thank you so much to the author and Red Hen Press for a physical ARC of Kill Dick, which is out today, 4/14/26!
This book first came on my radar because my faveee Lukas Gage blurbed it. I then come to realize this is Ottessa Moshfegh's husband. I THEN come to realize Luke Goebel co-wrote Eileen the movie (the book is by Moshfegh). The movie was SUCH a great adaptation. He also wrote Causeway with Jennifer Lawrence which I heard is really good but I haven't seen. It's on my list now because I love JLaw!
ANYWAY! This book was a riiiiide. I can tell it was written by someone who writes movies, if that makes sense. There was a lot going on. It was dirty, and gritty, and downright traumatic at times. What I thought was really cool was the POV-shifting from first to third - I enjoyed that and thought it gave us a cool perspective on the unreliability of the narrator.
Real quick synopsis- the book is a literary thriller/satire that takes place in LA in 2016 right before the election. It's a tumultuous time, and addiction, a string of murders, and rich guy corruption added to it sure don't help. Our main character, Susie, is a little bit too close to all of it. We follow Susie through the literal ups and downs of LA at this time where everything is going awry. The writing style is very stream-of-conscious and anxiety-inducing, so strap in!
This book first came on my radar because my faveee Lukas Gage blurbed it. I then come to realize this is Ottessa Moshfegh's husband. I THEN come to realize Luke Goebel co-wrote Eileen the movie (the book is by Moshfegh). The movie was SUCH a great adaptation. He also wrote Causeway with Jennifer Lawrence which I heard is really good but I haven't seen. It's on my list now because I love JLaw!
ANYWAY! This book was a riiiiide. I can tell it was written by someone who writes movies, if that makes sense. There was a lot going on. It was dirty, and gritty, and downright traumatic at times. What I thought was really cool was the POV-shifting from first to third - I enjoyed that and thought it gave us a cool perspective on the unreliability of the narrator.
Real quick synopsis- the book is a literary thriller/satire that takes place in LA in 2016 right before the election. It's a tumultuous time, and addiction, a string of murders, and rich guy corruption added to it sure don't help. Our main character, Susie, is a little bit too close to all of it. We follow Susie through the literal ups and downs of LA at this time where everything is going awry. The writing style is very stream-of-conscious and anxiety-inducing, so strap in!
April 27, 2026
I received Kill Dick through a Goodreads giveaway sponsored by the author and publisher.
This is not a book I would normally pick up, so I wasn't sure I would like it at all. The writing is very quick to hit you - raw, a little chaotic, and not exactly easy. I won't lie, it took me a while to get used to the style, and there were times when I had to slow down and reread parts just to fully absorb what the author was doing.
What I liked most was the difference it made. It does not try to follow a standard structure or to make things easy for the reader, and I quite respected that. It feels bold and unapologetic, as if the author had written exactly what he wanted without any attempt to water down the material.
There were also moments and images that lingered with me after I finished the book, which I think is always a good sign. Even when it was a little confusing or uncomfortable, it kept my attention, and I found myself thinking about it afterwards. All that said, it is not a light or easy read, and I can imagine that it is not for everyone.
If you're someone who prefers simple narrative, this may be a little difficult. But if you're open to something different and don't mind a book that slows you down and makes you think, it might be worth trying.
#KillDick #RedHenPress #LukeGoebel
This is not a book I would normally pick up, so I wasn't sure I would like it at all. The writing is very quick to hit you - raw, a little chaotic, and not exactly easy. I won't lie, it took me a while to get used to the style, and there were times when I had to slow down and reread parts just to fully absorb what the author was doing.
What I liked most was the difference it made. It does not try to follow a standard structure or to make things easy for the reader, and I quite respected that. It feels bold and unapologetic, as if the author had written exactly what he wanted without any attempt to water down the material.
There were also moments and images that lingered with me after I finished the book, which I think is always a good sign. Even when it was a little confusing or uncomfortable, it kept my attention, and I found myself thinking about it afterwards. All that said, it is not a light or easy read, and I can imagine that it is not for everyone.
If you're someone who prefers simple narrative, this may be a little difficult. But if you're open to something different and don't mind a book that slows you down and makes you think, it might be worth trying.
#KillDick #RedHenPress #LukeGoebel
April 16, 2026
Where am I? WHO am I and WTF did I just read?
I had to take a moment to formulate my thoughts on this novel because it is a lot to unpack. The writing style is different; not bad, just different. Someone else referenced that it seemed like a fever dream, but I felt like I was watching someone's crazy trip unfold before my eyes and couldn't look away or stop watching although many times I definitely wanted to. The core topic of addiction and over consumption is raw and unforgiving, and there is a serious storyline somewhere in the mix of all the rants and tangents. You follow two main characters throughout the book, watching their behaviors and addictions unleash an emotional beating on your brain. The story is also following a string of murders through the main character's lives. Lots of back and forth. Like I said in the beginning, it is a lot to unpack and hard to stay focused on.
The writing style is NOT for everyone, or even many. It is reminiscent of Kill Bill or Pulp Fiction to me. Quirky, soap box rants and LOTS of words; too many unnecessary words consumed so many chapters, making the storyline hard to follow. At times I literally said out loud, WTF am I listening to? With that being said, the narrator was fantastic in delivering ALL THOSE WORDS.
If one word sums up my feeling about this novel it would be EXHAUSTING. I need a nap.
I had to take a moment to formulate my thoughts on this novel because it is a lot to unpack. The writing style is different; not bad, just different. Someone else referenced that it seemed like a fever dream, but I felt like I was watching someone's crazy trip unfold before my eyes and couldn't look away or stop watching although many times I definitely wanted to. The core topic of addiction and over consumption is raw and unforgiving, and there is a serious storyline somewhere in the mix of all the rants and tangents. You follow two main characters throughout the book, watching their behaviors and addictions unleash an emotional beating on your brain. The story is also following a string of murders through the main character's lives. Lots of back and forth. Like I said in the beginning, it is a lot to unpack and hard to stay focused on.
The writing style is NOT for everyone, or even many. It is reminiscent of Kill Bill or Pulp Fiction to me. Quirky, soap box rants and LOTS of words; too many unnecessary words consumed so many chapters, making the storyline hard to follow. At times I literally said out loud, WTF am I listening to? With that being said, the narrator was fantastic in delivering ALL THOSE WORDS.
If one word sums up my feeling about this novel it would be EXHAUSTING. I need a nap.
April 28, 2026
4/ A pulpy satire with some real style to ground it. This book is a reflection of our times, for better or worse. I enjoyed it but it will be love/hate for most readers. Susie is a perfect narrator to spark discussion and dissension and the world she inhabits is equal parts bougie and grimey and fully bleached out by the sunshine. For me, Goebel sells a zany caper with the style and voice; he channels a bit of Bret Easton Ellis, a pinch of Joan Didion, and a dollop of Tarantino (though I wish we went a bit more full boar here). Lots of polemic-y passages from characters all over the modern spectrum. I liked the cartoon aspect but would've enjoyed a bit more depiction of some of the wilder things that happen off the page. I think I'll need to read it a second time as it seems like you'd pick up on even more the second time around. You'll know pretty early if it's for you or not.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Luke Goebel’s novel “Kill Dick” is both playful and grotesque.
The story revolves around a series of brutal murders in Los Angeles motel rooms, the bodies desecrated, with nipples glued to eyelids, blood soaked into mattresses. In one case the victim’s head is missing.
It’s so traumatic that our narrator – 19-year-old college dropout Susie Vogelman, who’s caught up in the carnage – can’t tell it in a straightforward manner.
Much of the novel is written in the third person, but only after Susie introduces herself and identifies what you’re reading as a “novelization” of what happened in her life during the period of “the killings,” when she was mostly stoned out of her gourd.
“I turned it into art,” she tells us, adding:
“In order to craft this, I need to include multiple points of view, inviting the characters into the story, wrestling with their metaphysics as best I can.”
This is rather clever. We get the unreliable narrator without any need for the suspension of disbelief that’s a requirement of any first-person novel with it’s-happening-now action. (In “Farewell, My Lovely,” for example, is iconic P.I. Philip Marlowe narrating into, say, a strapped-on Dictaphone as he’s getting beaten unconscious?)
As it turns out, everything about “Kill Dick” is unreliable: the narrator, the murders, even one of the featured “blurbs” selling the novel. (“If this book were any better, I’d cut my own head off,” Booker Prize-shortlisted author Ottessa Moshfegh enthuses. Not mentioned: Moshfegh and Goebel are married.)
Goebel has come up with something strange and memorable here.
Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes it’s just ... strange.
“Kill Dick” (the title’s probably a double entendre, but, as with much of the story, who knows?) opens with Southern California’s famous Santa Ana winds, a metaphor of sorts, blowing through L.A.’s parched, always-conflagration-ready hills and into Hollywood, “sifting buttermilk-pancake dust up through Beverly Hills and Bel Air.”
The delectable powder lands on Susie, who’s stretched out by the pool at her parents’ swank home in Brentwood.
Susie is back at her parents’ place because her roommate at New York University died of an overdose, sending Susie into a tailspin. But mom and dad are no comfort, and so Susie tumbles into drug addiction – just as a serial killer in the city starts targeting addicts.
Susie reveals the plot slowly, enjoying painting us a Daliesque picture of both herself and Los Angeles. The sun sets “like a departing god” here. While lounging by the pool in a designer bikini, Susie gazes down at herself and notes her body is “almost transparent but leaden, like tanned solid glass.”
The mystery of the murders is weaved around cultural criticism of America today: commercialism, voyeurism, sexual confusion, ideological conflict. There are also nostalgic (yes, that’s the right word here) nods to ugly L.A. and celebrity sensations at the end of the 20th century: Natalie Wood’s death, Rodney King’s beating, the O.J. Simpson trial.
Susie muses throughout that maybe the serial killer was trying to overcome being a narcotized slave to advertisers and political flim-flammers, that killing people “was the only way he could change the nature of his own reality in a significant enough manner so that he was able to transcend the realm of soul-obedience and irrelevance that the world determined for him.”
Got that?
When she’s not being so philosophical, Susie rages at her conspiracy-minded, largely absent father, a lawyer for the Sicklers (a fictional stand-in for the Sacklers, the wealthy Big Pharma family that brought America the opioid epidemic) and wonders if he’s the killer.
The plot thickens thanks to Peter, one of Susie’s NYU professors, who also ends up in L.A., in his case to search for his addict twin brother. Peter grew up in Portland, where he ran with environmental activists who later “would turn into loser liberals, distracted by race, gender, sexuality – any category of victimhood the DNC could weaponize – while the party kept dodging pharma, genocidal war and poison food, its leaders stuffing their faces with veal and pills.”
But this is Susie’s show. Goebel, who grew up in Portland, has a lot to say about the America we live in, and it can get annoying. This is probably not a guy you want to sit next to at a dinner party. And yet, when he filters these views through preternaturally observant, messed-up Susie, a modern-day Joan Didion-lite, it kind of works.
“She picked up her phone to post a photo of her armpit on Instagram – there was a gritty ingrown hair growing among pilly dots of yesterday’s antiperspirant,” Goebel writes as Susie, who’s writing about herself from a studied remove. “Isn’t that the world right now? The unkempt armpit of the spoiled and suffering? She was a genius. She tried to take the selfie but the phone slipped through her fingers – the tanning oil.”
Where does this all lead? Goebel eventually returns to those scouring Santa Ana winds, if that helps.
The story revolves around a series of brutal murders in Los Angeles motel rooms, the bodies desecrated, with nipples glued to eyelids, blood soaked into mattresses. In one case the victim’s head is missing.
It’s so traumatic that our narrator – 19-year-old college dropout Susie Vogelman, who’s caught up in the carnage – can’t tell it in a straightforward manner.
Much of the novel is written in the third person, but only after Susie introduces herself and identifies what you’re reading as a “novelization” of what happened in her life during the period of “the killings,” when she was mostly stoned out of her gourd.
“I turned it into art,” she tells us, adding:
“In order to craft this, I need to include multiple points of view, inviting the characters into the story, wrestling with their metaphysics as best I can.”
This is rather clever. We get the unreliable narrator without any need for the suspension of disbelief that’s a requirement of any first-person novel with it’s-happening-now action. (In “Farewell, My Lovely,” for example, is iconic P.I. Philip Marlowe narrating into, say, a strapped-on Dictaphone as he’s getting beaten unconscious?)
As it turns out, everything about “Kill Dick” is unreliable: the narrator, the murders, even one of the featured “blurbs” selling the novel. (“If this book were any better, I’d cut my own head off,” Booker Prize-shortlisted author Ottessa Moshfegh enthuses. Not mentioned: Moshfegh and Goebel are married.)
Goebel has come up with something strange and memorable here.
Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes it’s just ... strange.
“Kill Dick” (the title’s probably a double entendre, but, as with much of the story, who knows?) opens with Southern California’s famous Santa Ana winds, a metaphor of sorts, blowing through L.A.’s parched, always-conflagration-ready hills and into Hollywood, “sifting buttermilk-pancake dust up through Beverly Hills and Bel Air.”
The delectable powder lands on Susie, who’s stretched out by the pool at her parents’ swank home in Brentwood.
Susie is back at her parents’ place because her roommate at New York University died of an overdose, sending Susie into a tailspin. But mom and dad are no comfort, and so Susie tumbles into drug addiction – just as a serial killer in the city starts targeting addicts.
Susie reveals the plot slowly, enjoying painting us a Daliesque picture of both herself and Los Angeles. The sun sets “like a departing god” here. While lounging by the pool in a designer bikini, Susie gazes down at herself and notes her body is “almost transparent but leaden, like tanned solid glass.”
The mystery of the murders is weaved around cultural criticism of America today: commercialism, voyeurism, sexual confusion, ideological conflict. There are also nostalgic (yes, that’s the right word here) nods to ugly L.A. and celebrity sensations at the end of the 20th century: Natalie Wood’s death, Rodney King’s beating, the O.J. Simpson trial.
Susie muses throughout that maybe the serial killer was trying to overcome being a narcotized slave to advertisers and political flim-flammers, that killing people “was the only way he could change the nature of his own reality in a significant enough manner so that he was able to transcend the realm of soul-obedience and irrelevance that the world determined for him.”
Got that?
When she’s not being so philosophical, Susie rages at her conspiracy-minded, largely absent father, a lawyer for the Sicklers (a fictional stand-in for the Sacklers, the wealthy Big Pharma family that brought America the opioid epidemic) and wonders if he’s the killer.
The plot thickens thanks to Peter, one of Susie’s NYU professors, who also ends up in L.A., in his case to search for his addict twin brother. Peter grew up in Portland, where he ran with environmental activists who later “would turn into loser liberals, distracted by race, gender, sexuality – any category of victimhood the DNC could weaponize – while the party kept dodging pharma, genocidal war and poison food, its leaders stuffing their faces with veal and pills.”
But this is Susie’s show. Goebel, who grew up in Portland, has a lot to say about the America we live in, and it can get annoying. This is probably not a guy you want to sit next to at a dinner party. And yet, when he filters these views through preternaturally observant, messed-up Susie, a modern-day Joan Didion-lite, it kind of works.
“She picked up her phone to post a photo of her armpit on Instagram – there was a gritty ingrown hair growing among pilly dots of yesterday’s antiperspirant,” Goebel writes as Susie, who’s writing about herself from a studied remove. “Isn’t that the world right now? The unkempt armpit of the spoiled and suffering? She was a genius. She tried to take the selfie but the phone slipped through her fingers – the tanning oil.”
Where does this all lead? Goebel eventually returns to those scouring Santa Ana winds, if that helps.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Book Review: Kill Dick by Luke Goebel
Kill Dick is a blistering, darkly comic descent into privilege, addiction, and moral rot, delivered with a voice that is as fearless as it is unsettling. Luke Goebel crafts a modern literary thriller that refuses comfort, forcing readers to sit with the consequences of wealth, complicity, and systems designed to exploit the vulnerable.
At the center is Susie Vogelman, a nineteen-year-old adrift in Los Angeles excess—pill-fueled, insulated by money, and numbed by a life that should feel charmed but instead feels hollow. Her detachment is shattered when a series of violent murders targeting addicts ripples through the city, and the distance between Susie’s insulated world and the suffering outside it collapses. As headlines begin to implicate her father’s opioid empire—and by extension, Susie herself—the novel sharpens into an indictment of inherited power and willful blindness.
Enter Peter Holiday, a disgraced academic running a grotesquely clever rehab scam. His collision with Susie is electric and disturbing, less a partnership than a mutual freefall. Together, they navigate a landscape where every institution—family, academia, medicine, recovery—feels corrupted beyond repair. Goebel’s satire cuts deep here, exposing how exploitation often masquerades as care, and how easy it is to profit from pain when you’re protected by money and myth.
What sets Kill Dick apart is its razor-sharp prose and moral ferocity. Goebel doesn’t moralize; he dissects. The humor is pitch-black, the violence purposeful, and the characters painfully human in their selfishness, fear, and desperation. The novel constantly challenges the reader to question where survival ends and self-destruction begins—and who gets punished, and who gets protected, when everything falls apart.
Bold, confrontational, and disturbingly relevant, Kill Dick is not an easy read, but it’s a necessary one. It’s a novel for readers who appreciate literary fiction that takes risks, refuses tidy resolutions, and dares to stare directly at the machinery of modern exploitation without blinking.
Kill Dick is a blistering, darkly comic descent into privilege, addiction, and moral rot, delivered with a voice that is as fearless as it is unsettling. Luke Goebel crafts a modern literary thriller that refuses comfort, forcing readers to sit with the consequences of wealth, complicity, and systems designed to exploit the vulnerable.
At the center is Susie Vogelman, a nineteen-year-old adrift in Los Angeles excess—pill-fueled, insulated by money, and numbed by a life that should feel charmed but instead feels hollow. Her detachment is shattered when a series of violent murders targeting addicts ripples through the city, and the distance between Susie’s insulated world and the suffering outside it collapses. As headlines begin to implicate her father’s opioid empire—and by extension, Susie herself—the novel sharpens into an indictment of inherited power and willful blindness.
Enter Peter Holiday, a disgraced academic running a grotesquely clever rehab scam. His collision with Susie is electric and disturbing, less a partnership than a mutual freefall. Together, they navigate a landscape where every institution—family, academia, medicine, recovery—feels corrupted beyond repair. Goebel’s satire cuts deep here, exposing how exploitation often masquerades as care, and how easy it is to profit from pain when you’re protected by money and myth.
What sets Kill Dick apart is its razor-sharp prose and moral ferocity. Goebel doesn’t moralize; he dissects. The humor is pitch-black, the violence purposeful, and the characters painfully human in their selfishness, fear, and desperation. The novel constantly challenges the reader to question where survival ends and self-destruction begins—and who gets punished, and who gets protected, when everything falls apart.
Bold, confrontational, and disturbingly relevant, Kill Dick is not an easy read, but it’s a necessary one. It’s a novel for readers who appreciate literary fiction that takes risks, refuses tidy resolutions, and dares to stare directly at the machinery of modern exploitation without blinking.
April 17, 2026
This book is not gentle in any way. It grabs you and pulls you through something raw and uncomfortable. Kill Dick feels wild and harsh but also painfully honest. It shows a story piece by piece instead of guiding you through it. I felt drawn in the whole time even when it made me uneasy. Susie Vogelman comes across as someone who has everything yet is falling apart inside. She drifts through her days in a haze of pills and avoidance. Her life looks secure on the outside but it is empty at the core. Watching her face reality felt like seeing something unravel in slow motion. It is hard to turn away even as it gets darker.
Peter adds another layer of chaos. He is reckless and controlling while running a rehab scheme that sounds strange but also believable. Their connection is unhealthy and intense in a way that keeps you locked in. The Los Angeles setting adds to the feeling. It shines on the surface but there is decay underneath it all. The writing is bold and cutting and sometimes feels close to the edge but it is always purposeful. It digs into addiction and wealth and the systems that let damage continue. What stayed with me most is how it shows that no one is fully innocent. It makes you sit with that discomfort and question where survival ends and self destruction begins. The story is harsh and unsettling yet everything feels meaningful. It left me feeling shaken and aware.
Peter adds another layer of chaos. He is reckless and controlling while running a rehab scheme that sounds strange but also believable. Their connection is unhealthy and intense in a way that keeps you locked in. The Los Angeles setting adds to the feeling. It shines on the surface but there is decay underneath it all. The writing is bold and cutting and sometimes feels close to the edge but it is always purposeful. It digs into addiction and wealth and the systems that let damage continue. What stayed with me most is how it shows that no one is fully innocent. It makes you sit with that discomfort and question where survival ends and self destruction begins. The story is harsh and unsettling yet everything feels meaningful. It left me feeling shaken and aware.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2026
4.5 ⭐️ Completely different from my normal reads, but absolutely aligned with my views. Such a gold mine of truths about our reality- ones we need to hear. This book is a conversation starter for discussions we should be having, especially in our current climate. I love how aggressive it is in naming the things people avoid- the things people probably already think but refuse to say, or allow to happen because they feel powerless to stop them.
The satirical wit is something else. Quotes like this had me laughing while also making me think:
“New Yorkers were mostly stupid and pretentious, practically glued to the guardrail of commercial groupthink and liberal brainwashing. In LA at least people didn’t dare expose themselves. They smiled and ate the blinis and risked nothing, waiting to be entertained, talking about who they knew or what they’d seen or who they collected.”
Witty on the surface, but the kind of thing that can fuel an hour-long conversation if you let it. There are a lot of moments like that in here.
This book puts into perspective how broken our world is- but honestly, it also gave me the drive to do better, at least within the little space I take up. Bravo 👏🏽
The satirical wit is something else. Quotes like this had me laughing while also making me think:
“New Yorkers were mostly stupid and pretentious, practically glued to the guardrail of commercial groupthink and liberal brainwashing. In LA at least people didn’t dare expose themselves. They smiled and ate the blinis and risked nothing, waiting to be entertained, talking about who they knew or what they’d seen or who they collected.”
Witty on the surface, but the kind of thing that can fuel an hour-long conversation if you let it. There are a lot of moments like that in here.
This book puts into perspective how broken our world is- but honestly, it also gave me the drive to do better, at least within the little space I take up. Bravo 👏🏽
Read
February 18, 2026Kill Dick is a blistering, unrelenting descent into the moral rot beneath Los Angeles privilege. This is not a book that asks for your comfort—it demands your attention. The novel’s power lies in its ferocious intelligence and refusal to soften its vision. Susie Vogelman is a haunting protagonist: insulated by wealth, numbed by addiction, and slowly awakening to the violence underwriting her existence. The plot moves like a fever spike—erratic, brutal, and impossible to ignore—while the prose remains sharp and controlled. The satire cuts deep, exposing how addiction is monetized, exploited, and conveniently ignored by those who profit most. Peter Holiday’s storyline is equally disturbing, offering a grotesque mirror to Susie’s world. Kill Dick is fearless, confrontational, and wildly ambitious—a literary thriller that earns every ounce of its darkness.
April 20, 2026
So…we’re sure this is fiction? Asking for a friend.
May 7, 2026
Knocked off a star bc there are some internal monologues that felt redundant & the writing was maybe too Bret Easton Ellis-y at points, BUT damn if that ending didn’t stick. Wait, have I been moved?
March 22, 2026
Completely in shock! It’s raw, satirical, extremely dark and messy. This one was definitely a different type of read, no happily ever after here. I was drawn in since page one but it took me awhile to get through it as it is pretty heavy 😮💨 I was confused at times but definitely a great read. #killdick #lukegoebel #redhenpress #goodreads #giveaway
Review of advance copy received from Author
Book Review: Kill Dick is a blistering descent into Los Angeles as both paradise and pathology 🌴. Luke Goebel writes LA not as a backdrop but as a living organism—glittering, predatory, and deeply complicit in the damage it inflicts. At the center is Susie Vogelman, a nineteen-year-old drifting through privilege and pills, until the city’s violence forces her to confront the systems she benefits from and enables.
The novel’s genius lies in its refusal to moralize. Addiction isn’t romanticized, nor is it reduced to a cautionary tale. The murders stalking addicts across the city expose a brutal hypocrisy ⚖️: whose lives matter, and whose suffering is profitable. Peter Holiday, a disgraced academic turned rehab grifter, is darkly comic and unsettling—an embodiment of exploitation disguised as salvation.
Goebel’s prose is sharp and hallucinatory ✒️, balancing satire with genuine menace. Kill Dick feels less like a thriller you read and more like one you survive. It’s an unflinching autopsy of wealth, rot, and denial—where love and violence blur into something disturbingly familiar.
#KillDick #LukeGoebel #LiteraryThriller #DarkSatire #LosAngelesNoir ModernFiction BookReview 📚
The novel’s genius lies in its refusal to moralize. Addiction isn’t romanticized, nor is it reduced to a cautionary tale. The murders stalking addicts across the city expose a brutal hypocrisy ⚖️: whose lives matter, and whose suffering is profitable. Peter Holiday, a disgraced academic turned rehab grifter, is darkly comic and unsettling—an embodiment of exploitation disguised as salvation.
Goebel’s prose is sharp and hallucinatory ✒️, balancing satire with genuine menace. Kill Dick feels less like a thriller you read and more like one you survive. It’s an unflinching autopsy of wealth, rot, and denial—where love and violence blur into something disturbingly familiar.
#KillDick #LukeGoebel #LiteraryThriller #DarkSatire #LosAngelesNoir ModernFiction BookReview 📚
Read
April 15, 2026isn't it a bit of a conflict of interest to have ottessa moshfegh (his wife) blurb this book?
April 29, 2026
Very interesting book with lots of twists and turns.
May 12, 2026
★★
Kill Dick wants to be several things at once: a roman à clef about the opioid crisis, a portrait of Los Angeles as a city built on beauty and falsity, a coming-of-age story for pharmaceutical capitalism, a conspiracy thriller, and a meditation on whether direct action and art are separable pursuits. This was why I very much wanted to like it. Why didn't I? Because it reads like a very intelligent, very annoying person at a party, trying to prove in monologue that they are smarter, dirtier, more politically aware, more culturally literate, more morally contaminated, and thus, more important than you.
The primary narrator, Susie Vogelman —perpetually on drugs but magically politically consious and self-aware— is a nineteen-year-old girl that the author writes as beautiful in ways he cannot quite separate from ways he writes her as interesting. In fact, the novel is so transparently infatuated with her that the reader can never quite see her as human. Susie is described in a way that sits somewhere between portraiture and ogling: her bikinis, her nipples, her upturned breasts, her thighs, her exposed midriff, etc. (the novel seems to believe that because Susie narrates her own objectification with ironic detachment, the objectification itself is believably interior rather than exterior). But that's just one of the ways Susie does not feel remotely real. She is precocious beyond any nineteen-year-old's actual potential for precocity — fluent in Baudrillard (why is it always Baudrillard?), dismissing her peers with the world-weary authority of someone who has already read All The Ideas, "bad" at school but also, an art-obsessed genius— and yet, emotionally she functions at the level of a chalk outline for the author's ideas (even the very good ones) about capitalism and protest art. The narration keeps insisting on her importance. She is a fuck-up, a genius, a failed genius, an artist, an anti-artist, an ingénue, an enfant terrible, a victim of history, a product of wealth, a symptom of opioid America, a private person trapped in public spectacle. Oh, Sad Smart Bad Dirty Girl Narrator! If only you had a heart. I began to long for her to do something ordinary, if only to escape the suffocation of significance.
The novel wants badly to be transgressive. It keeps promising us transgression. This is, of course, what keeps it from ever feeling transgressive. It keeps reaching for the forbidden, the degraded, the eroticized, the drugged heiress, the mutilated corpse, the cult ritual, the art-world scandal, etc. to tell us, like so much post-Moshfegh contemporary fiction, that it's not afraid to be gross and bad. The result feels very similar to the goofy, prestige-teen-nihilism of shows like Euphoria (Season 3, the first two seasons were genuinely good): it's all expensive locations, ruined young women, ambient self-loathing, pills, sex, blood, designer brands (...so many designer brands). One can feel it straining toward a grand indictment of spectacle while being absolutely thrilled by being able to play with the spectacle it's creating. But the deeper issue is formal: the novel has plot ingredients, but very little plot discipline. There's murder, opioid overdose, crime worlds, a Failed White Male Professor having a Naughty Affair with a student, a fraudulent rehab, cults (corny, pageant obsessed One Battle After Another style cults), government corruption, art-world bullshit. There is, admittedly, a lot of really interesting things happening. So why couldn't I feel these elements ever exert pressure on one another? Instead, the book meanders through confession, third-person narration, essayistic rant, cultural inventory, backstory, blunt-force satire, and gore tableau, often without any action. Scenes are scaffolding for long political explanations. Characters are analyzed before, during, and after they act.
Similarly, the novel's politics are ambitious but, to my genuine dismay, flattened by contempt. Yes, the internet is corrosive, capitalism metabolizes pain, rich people launder guilt through aesthetics, pharmaceuticals are evil, social media turns suffering into performance, institutions are hollow, men are pathetic, privilege is a trap, America is a scam, everything is spectacle. Goebel's not wrong there. But because everything is so unfailingly corrupt, the revelation of corruption stops carrying any force. Because everyone is implicated, implication means nothing. Because every cultural object is another symptom of capitalism, the novel’s politics become decorative: a wash painted over scenes that might have been more disturbing without it. The internet, capitalism, liberal hypocrisy, fascist paranoia, pharmaceutical greed, and aesthetic self-branding all blur into a single limpid, familiar badness. And even worse, nearly every character is both 1. aware of this and 2. correctly contemptuous about it in the same register. Susie’s contempt, Krolik’s contempt, the narration’s contempt, the social media contempt, the art-world contempt, the anti-capitalist contempt: the voices are all exactly the same. Goebel is a genuine stylist, and Kill Dick often excels at the level of the individual sentence. But across multiple consciousnesses, an essential sameness prevails. Why write from different perspective when they have all, it seems, read the same books and absorbed the same bad behavior and theoretical concepts and ironic remove? [A PSA to any writers stumbling upon this: please let a character be boring. Let someone be practical. Let someone be stupid. Let someone in your book speak without sounding like they have a Masters degree. I'm BEGGING you.]
There is a walk through Skid Row in the novel, observed with a clarity that briefly makes the whole enterprise cohere: the tent cities, the street bosses and their hierarchies, the way the opioid economy is partially visible within the sprawl of downtown Los Angeles. It is the passage most willing to look at its subject without immediately converting it into an argument, and because of this, it is some of the novel's best sustained writing. It suggests a better, less defended book somewhere inside this one, a book willing to let its characters feel as lost as we all feel, without always having them know and understand exactly what is responsible.
Kill Dick wants to be several things at once: a roman à clef about the opioid crisis, a portrait of Los Angeles as a city built on beauty and falsity, a coming-of-age story for pharmaceutical capitalism, a conspiracy thriller, and a meditation on whether direct action and art are separable pursuits. This was why I very much wanted to like it. Why didn't I? Because it reads like a very intelligent, very annoying person at a party, trying to prove in monologue that they are smarter, dirtier, more politically aware, more culturally literate, more morally contaminated, and thus, more important than you.
The primary narrator, Susie Vogelman —perpetually on drugs but magically politically consious and self-aware— is a nineteen-year-old girl that the author writes as beautiful in ways he cannot quite separate from ways he writes her as interesting. In fact, the novel is so transparently infatuated with her that the reader can never quite see her as human. Susie is described in a way that sits somewhere between portraiture and ogling: her bikinis, her nipples, her upturned breasts, her thighs, her exposed midriff, etc. (the novel seems to believe that because Susie narrates her own objectification with ironic detachment, the objectification itself is believably interior rather than exterior). But that's just one of the ways Susie does not feel remotely real. She is precocious beyond any nineteen-year-old's actual potential for precocity — fluent in Baudrillard (why is it always Baudrillard?), dismissing her peers with the world-weary authority of someone who has already read All The Ideas, "bad" at school but also, an art-obsessed genius— and yet, emotionally she functions at the level of a chalk outline for the author's ideas (even the very good ones) about capitalism and protest art. The narration keeps insisting on her importance. She is a fuck-up, a genius, a failed genius, an artist, an anti-artist, an ingénue, an enfant terrible, a victim of history, a product of wealth, a symptom of opioid America, a private person trapped in public spectacle. Oh, Sad Smart Bad Dirty Girl Narrator! If only you had a heart. I began to long for her to do something ordinary, if only to escape the suffocation of significance.
The novel wants badly to be transgressive. It keeps promising us transgression. This is, of course, what keeps it from ever feeling transgressive. It keeps reaching for the forbidden, the degraded, the eroticized, the drugged heiress, the mutilated corpse, the cult ritual, the art-world scandal, etc. to tell us, like so much post-Moshfegh contemporary fiction, that it's not afraid to be gross and bad. The result feels very similar to the goofy, prestige-teen-nihilism of shows like Euphoria (Season 3, the first two seasons were genuinely good): it's all expensive locations, ruined young women, ambient self-loathing, pills, sex, blood, designer brands (...so many designer brands). One can feel it straining toward a grand indictment of spectacle while being absolutely thrilled by being able to play with the spectacle it's creating. But the deeper issue is formal: the novel has plot ingredients, but very little plot discipline. There's murder, opioid overdose, crime worlds, a Failed White Male Professor having a Naughty Affair with a student, a fraudulent rehab, cults (corny, pageant obsessed One Battle After Another style cults), government corruption, art-world bullshit. There is, admittedly, a lot of really interesting things happening. So why couldn't I feel these elements ever exert pressure on one another? Instead, the book meanders through confession, third-person narration, essayistic rant, cultural inventory, backstory, blunt-force satire, and gore tableau, often without any action. Scenes are scaffolding for long political explanations. Characters are analyzed before, during, and after they act.
Similarly, the novel's politics are ambitious but, to my genuine dismay, flattened by contempt. Yes, the internet is corrosive, capitalism metabolizes pain, rich people launder guilt through aesthetics, pharmaceuticals are evil, social media turns suffering into performance, institutions are hollow, men are pathetic, privilege is a trap, America is a scam, everything is spectacle. Goebel's not wrong there. But because everything is so unfailingly corrupt, the revelation of corruption stops carrying any force. Because everyone is implicated, implication means nothing. Because every cultural object is another symptom of capitalism, the novel’s politics become decorative: a wash painted over scenes that might have been more disturbing without it. The internet, capitalism, liberal hypocrisy, fascist paranoia, pharmaceutical greed, and aesthetic self-branding all blur into a single limpid, familiar badness. And even worse, nearly every character is both 1. aware of this and 2. correctly contemptuous about it in the same register. Susie’s contempt, Krolik’s contempt, the narration’s contempt, the social media contempt, the art-world contempt, the anti-capitalist contempt: the voices are all exactly the same. Goebel is a genuine stylist, and Kill Dick often excels at the level of the individual sentence. But across multiple consciousnesses, an essential sameness prevails. Why write from different perspective when they have all, it seems, read the same books and absorbed the same bad behavior and theoretical concepts and ironic remove? [A PSA to any writers stumbling upon this: please let a character be boring. Let someone be practical. Let someone be stupid. Let someone in your book speak without sounding like they have a Masters degree. I'm BEGGING you.]
There is a walk through Skid Row in the novel, observed with a clarity that briefly makes the whole enterprise cohere: the tent cities, the street bosses and their hierarchies, the way the opioid economy is partially visible within the sprawl of downtown Los Angeles. It is the passage most willing to look at its subject without immediately converting it into an argument, and because of this, it is some of the novel's best sustained writing. It suggests a better, less defended book somewhere inside this one, a book willing to let its characters feel as lost as we all feel, without always having them know and understand exactly what is responsible.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This book feels like eavesdropping on a therapy session that absolutely should not be recorded, except it’s happening poolside in Brentwood and everyone is lightly high and deeply morally compromised. Kill Dick does not ease you in. It grabs you by the jaw, points at Los Angeles, and goes, “You see this? This is all rot.” And you’re like…okay wow, aggressive, but also you’re not wrong.
Susie Vogelman is our chaotic little disaster heiress, and I say that with affection and concern. She’s nineteen, rich enough to never face consequences, and floating through life in a prescription pill haze like a girl who accidentally wandered into the wrong timeline and decided to just…stay there. She’s not trying to be likable. She’s trying to survive existing in a world where everything is fake, including her own sense of self, and honestly that’s more compelling than any “strong female character” who runs marathons at 5 AM.
And the thing is, Susie knows. She knows her wealth is dirty. She knows her dad is tangled up in some deeply sinister opioid empire situation. She knows the system is broken. She just doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge besides keep numbing out and occasionally having an existential spiral that feels a little too real for comfort.
Then the murders start. Addicts are being killed across LA, and instead of this turning into a clean, structured whodunit, the book basically says, “What if the mystery is actually society?” Which is both very pretentious and unfortunately very effective. The violence isn’t just plot, it’s commentary, and it keeps circling back to this idea that some lives are disposable depending on who’s profiting. Fun! Love that for us!
Enter Peter Holiday, who is possibly the worst man you know but also the most fascinating one at the party. He’s running a rehab scam that is so blatantly unethical it almost becomes performance art. Watching him and Susie interact is like watching two people play chicken with their own humanity. No one is winning. Everyone is spiraling. I was obsessed.
The satire here is doing the most, but in a way that feels intentional instead of exhausting. It’s not spoon-feeding you cleverness, it’s just dropping you into this glittery nightmare of wealth and addiction and letting you connect the dots while you slowly lose your grip on reality. There were moments I genuinely felt unmoored, like the narrative was shifting under my feet, but that chaos mirrors the characters so well that I kind of respected the commitment to the bit.
Also, let’s talk about how this book is fully comfortable being gross, weird, and occasionally like…did you have to say it like that? But it never feels like shock for the sake of shock. It feels pointed. Like it’s trying to make you uncomfortable on purpose, which, rude, but effective.
Now the audiobook. Sharon Freedman came in with this calm, controlled delivery that feels like someone narrating their own breakdown with suspicious composure. It’s not flashy. It’s not overly dramatized. It’s almost too steady, which somehow makes everything hit harder. The emotional detachment in her voice lines up perfectly with Susie’s whole “I am dissociating but make it aesthetic” vibe, and it adds this eerie layer where you’re like…should I be more upset than I am right now?
There were definitely moments where I had to rewind because the structure is doing its own thing, and if you zone out for two seconds you’re suddenly in a different perspective questioning your life choices. But weirdly, that made it more immersive. It feels like the audiobook is pulling you into the same disoriented headspace the characters are stuck in, which is either genius or mildly evil.
Emotionally, this book is not here to hold your hand. It’s here to stare at you across the table and ask uncomfortable questions about complicity while you nervously sip your drink. It’s bleak, it’s sharp, it’s occasionally funny in a way that sneaks up on you, and it leaves you with that lingering “oh no” feeling that sits in your chest a little longer than you’d like.
Four stars, because even when I felt like I was trying to read through a haze, I couldn’t look away. It’s bold, messy, smart, and just self-aware enough to pull it off without collapsing under its own ambition.
Whodunity Award: For Making Me Side-Eye Every Wellness Brand, Rehab Center, and Rich Man Named Dick
Big thanks to Brilliance Publishing and NetGalley for the ALC, and for turning my casual listening time into a full-blown existential crisis.
Susie Vogelman is our chaotic little disaster heiress, and I say that with affection and concern. She’s nineteen, rich enough to never face consequences, and floating through life in a prescription pill haze like a girl who accidentally wandered into the wrong timeline and decided to just…stay there. She’s not trying to be likable. She’s trying to survive existing in a world where everything is fake, including her own sense of self, and honestly that’s more compelling than any “strong female character” who runs marathons at 5 AM.
And the thing is, Susie knows. She knows her wealth is dirty. She knows her dad is tangled up in some deeply sinister opioid empire situation. She knows the system is broken. She just doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge besides keep numbing out and occasionally having an existential spiral that feels a little too real for comfort.
Then the murders start. Addicts are being killed across LA, and instead of this turning into a clean, structured whodunit, the book basically says, “What if the mystery is actually society?” Which is both very pretentious and unfortunately very effective. The violence isn’t just plot, it’s commentary, and it keeps circling back to this idea that some lives are disposable depending on who’s profiting. Fun! Love that for us!
Enter Peter Holiday, who is possibly the worst man you know but also the most fascinating one at the party. He’s running a rehab scam that is so blatantly unethical it almost becomes performance art. Watching him and Susie interact is like watching two people play chicken with their own humanity. No one is winning. Everyone is spiraling. I was obsessed.
The satire here is doing the most, but in a way that feels intentional instead of exhausting. It’s not spoon-feeding you cleverness, it’s just dropping you into this glittery nightmare of wealth and addiction and letting you connect the dots while you slowly lose your grip on reality. There were moments I genuinely felt unmoored, like the narrative was shifting under my feet, but that chaos mirrors the characters so well that I kind of respected the commitment to the bit.
Also, let’s talk about how this book is fully comfortable being gross, weird, and occasionally like…did you have to say it like that? But it never feels like shock for the sake of shock. It feels pointed. Like it’s trying to make you uncomfortable on purpose, which, rude, but effective.
Now the audiobook. Sharon Freedman came in with this calm, controlled delivery that feels like someone narrating their own breakdown with suspicious composure. It’s not flashy. It’s not overly dramatized. It’s almost too steady, which somehow makes everything hit harder. The emotional detachment in her voice lines up perfectly with Susie’s whole “I am dissociating but make it aesthetic” vibe, and it adds this eerie layer where you’re like…should I be more upset than I am right now?
There were definitely moments where I had to rewind because the structure is doing its own thing, and if you zone out for two seconds you’re suddenly in a different perspective questioning your life choices. But weirdly, that made it more immersive. It feels like the audiobook is pulling you into the same disoriented headspace the characters are stuck in, which is either genius or mildly evil.
Emotionally, this book is not here to hold your hand. It’s here to stare at you across the table and ask uncomfortable questions about complicity while you nervously sip your drink. It’s bleak, it’s sharp, it’s occasionally funny in a way that sneaks up on you, and it leaves you with that lingering “oh no” feeling that sits in your chest a little longer than you’d like.
Four stars, because even when I felt like I was trying to read through a haze, I couldn’t look away. It’s bold, messy, smart, and just self-aware enough to pull it off without collapsing under its own ambition.
Whodunity Award: For Making Me Side-Eye Every Wellness Brand, Rehab Center, and Rich Man Named Dick
Big thanks to Brilliance Publishing and NetGalley for the ALC, and for turning my casual listening time into a full-blown existential crisis.
April 25, 2026
It reads like a hodgepodge of edgelord provocation—an attempt to hit every major social issue of the moment committing to any of them, while also acting as a catalogue of the author’s interests: philosophy, pop culture, politics, history, conspiracy theory, and assorted intellectual frameworks. And, of course, it’s set in the lead-up to the first Trump election, which, to me, automatically feels like a signal of intent if it’s not incorporated organically. Like a lot of novels using this period as a backdrop, it leans on that now-overdone diversion of not naming names: Trump becomes “the orange candidate,” Hillary “the female candidate”—as if sidestepping specificity adds something. It doesn’t. It just feels coy. I’m not even comparing this book to Go Gentle, but I just read that novel and appreciated how Maria Semple faced the politics of the same moment head-on and named names rather than hiding behind winking identifiers as a literary device.
At first, I was intrigued by the vibe and structure, which seemed to promise something layered, but it quickly becomes an exercise in characters serving as proxies for a checklist of social dilemmas. There’s the opioid-addicted yet privileged young woman—detached (she hates liberals, she hates fascists, she hates everything) but also framed as a casualty of patriarchal systems; the disenfranchised white man exploring non-heteronormative desires while orbiting, in a very Los Angeles way, cults and cult-adjacent behavior proliferating along the city’s margins; the ambiguous, possibly (then later definitively) trans Asian drug dealer navigating a shifting sense of self; and, looming behind them all, familiar specters—agents of capitalist greed and a “killer” preying on society’s most vulnerable, rendered more like mustache-curling villains than anything grounded or complex. None of them are allowed to develop beyond their symbolic roles. There’s zero character development—really, almost no character work at all—so they never register as people, only positions.
Some of the choices feel baffling, like taking one of the most interesting characters—the aforementioned disenfranchised white male—and abruptly dropping his POV halfway through the book. There’s a persistent unevenness to the structure that reinforces the sense that the author shifts focus only to whichever character best advances the social commentary he’s eager to put on the page.
Even small details feel overly calculated, like the use of social terminology that didn’t become prevalent until shortly after the time period (but maybe LA is always ahead of the curve on woke stuff?) , clearly deployed to signal the book’s thematic priorities rather than to reflect the reality of its setting.
What’s frustrating is that the setting had real potential. There are flashes of a gritty, noir-inflected Los Angeles that could have anchored the novel, but that thread never develops. Ultimately, it feels like the story could be set anywhere.
I came to this partly because of comparisons to Bret Easton Ellis, but where Ellis uses mundane human interaction, glamor, nihilism, precision, and a strong sense of place to explore the human condition—without becoming didactic—this novel is far more insistent. It pushes and pushes (how many times can an author use the word “Empire”?) with the energy of a semi-hard provocateur, but without restraint and without much apparent care for the people he’s drawing. The characters aren’t unlikable; they just aren’t really there at all.
The writing is competent, but the story never evolves into something that feels like a novel rather than a manifesto of its moment—and it really does feel like that moment now that we’re a decade removed. Maybe this is just fatigue on my part; there’s only so much appetite left for literary commentary circling the early Trump era. It feels like we need more distance from it before it can be given a genuinely fresh perspective. This book feels perfectly contrived and admittedly something the 2016 version of me would have eaten up, but I’m not that anymore, and now it just feels off, overdone, and like something only to be consumed if you’re on the same cocktail of drugs the characters in this novel seem to be on.
At first, I was intrigued by the vibe and structure, which seemed to promise something layered, but it quickly becomes an exercise in characters serving as proxies for a checklist of social dilemmas. There’s the opioid-addicted yet privileged young woman—detached (she hates liberals, she hates fascists, she hates everything) but also framed as a casualty of patriarchal systems; the disenfranchised white man exploring non-heteronormative desires while orbiting, in a very Los Angeles way, cults and cult-adjacent behavior proliferating along the city’s margins; the ambiguous, possibly (then later definitively) trans Asian drug dealer navigating a shifting sense of self; and, looming behind them all, familiar specters—agents of capitalist greed and a “killer” preying on society’s most vulnerable, rendered more like mustache-curling villains than anything grounded or complex. None of them are allowed to develop beyond their symbolic roles. There’s zero character development—really, almost no character work at all—so they never register as people, only positions.
Some of the choices feel baffling, like taking one of the most interesting characters—the aforementioned disenfranchised white male—and abruptly dropping his POV halfway through the book. There’s a persistent unevenness to the structure that reinforces the sense that the author shifts focus only to whichever character best advances the social commentary he’s eager to put on the page.
Even small details feel overly calculated, like the use of social terminology that didn’t become prevalent until shortly after the time period (but maybe LA is always ahead of the curve on woke stuff?) , clearly deployed to signal the book’s thematic priorities rather than to reflect the reality of its setting.
What’s frustrating is that the setting had real potential. There are flashes of a gritty, noir-inflected Los Angeles that could have anchored the novel, but that thread never develops. Ultimately, it feels like the story could be set anywhere.
I came to this partly because of comparisons to Bret Easton Ellis, but where Ellis uses mundane human interaction, glamor, nihilism, precision, and a strong sense of place to explore the human condition—without becoming didactic—this novel is far more insistent. It pushes and pushes (how many times can an author use the word “Empire”?) with the energy of a semi-hard provocateur, but without restraint and without much apparent care for the people he’s drawing. The characters aren’t unlikable; they just aren’t really there at all.
The writing is competent, but the story never evolves into something that feels like a novel rather than a manifesto of its moment—and it really does feel like that moment now that we’re a decade removed. Maybe this is just fatigue on my part; there’s only so much appetite left for literary commentary circling the early Trump era. It feels like we need more distance from it before it can be given a genuinely fresh perspective. This book feels perfectly contrived and admittedly something the 2016 version of me would have eaten up, but I’m not that anymore, and now it just feels off, overdone, and like something only to be consumed if you’re on the same cocktail of drugs the characters in this novel seem to be on.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Kill Dick by Luke Goebel
Rating :5/5
Review:
👉This book is an audacious and unsettling novel that refuses to look away from the darker truths of modern American life. Set against the surreal backdrop of Los Angeles, the story blends satire and suspense into a narrative that feels both exaggerated and disturbingly plausible. Goebel doesn’t aim to comfort the reader; instead, he invites them into a world where privilege shields cruelty, addiction is commodified, and morality erodes quietly behind gated estates and glossy headlines.
👉Susie Vogelman is a strikingly complex protagonist, not because she is likable, but because she is honest in her detachment. At nineteen, she drifts through her days buffered by wealth, prescription drugs, and a lack of consequence. As a wave of violent murders targeting addicts sweeps through the city, Susie’s insulated existence begins to fracture. The looming connection between the crimes and her father’s involvement in the opioid industry forces her to reckon with the uncomfortable truth that her lifestyle is built on systemic harm.
👉The novel gains additional momentum through Peter Holiday, a disgraced academic running a sham rehabilitation operation that blurs the line between exploitation and survival. His character is both grotesque and darkly fascinating, embodying the hypocrisy of institutions that claim to offer redemption while feeding on vulnerability. When his path crosses with Susie’s, the narrative tightens, plunging both characters deeper into a world where escape is an illusion and complicity is unavoidable.
👉Goebel’s prose is sharp and deliberate, laced with biting humor that never undermines the gravity of its themes. Los Angeles is portrayed not as a glamorous playground but as a living system of decay—one that rewards indifference and punishes empathy. The novel’s structure mirrors its subject matter, moving with a disorienting rhythm that reflects the instability of addiction and moral collapse.
👉By the final pages, Kill Dick leaves a lingering sense of unease rather than closure, a choice that reinforces its thematic core.
Happy reading 😊
Rating :5/5
Review:
👉This book is an audacious and unsettling novel that refuses to look away from the darker truths of modern American life. Set against the surreal backdrop of Los Angeles, the story blends satire and suspense into a narrative that feels both exaggerated and disturbingly plausible. Goebel doesn’t aim to comfort the reader; instead, he invites them into a world where privilege shields cruelty, addiction is commodified, and morality erodes quietly behind gated estates and glossy headlines.
👉Susie Vogelman is a strikingly complex protagonist, not because she is likable, but because she is honest in her detachment. At nineteen, she drifts through her days buffered by wealth, prescription drugs, and a lack of consequence. As a wave of violent murders targeting addicts sweeps through the city, Susie’s insulated existence begins to fracture. The looming connection between the crimes and her father’s involvement in the opioid industry forces her to reckon with the uncomfortable truth that her lifestyle is built on systemic harm.
👉The novel gains additional momentum through Peter Holiday, a disgraced academic running a sham rehabilitation operation that blurs the line between exploitation and survival. His character is both grotesque and darkly fascinating, embodying the hypocrisy of institutions that claim to offer redemption while feeding on vulnerability. When his path crosses with Susie’s, the narrative tightens, plunging both characters deeper into a world where escape is an illusion and complicity is unavoidable.
👉Goebel’s prose is sharp and deliberate, laced with biting humor that never undermines the gravity of its themes. Los Angeles is portrayed not as a glamorous playground but as a living system of decay—one that rewards indifference and punishes empathy. The novel’s structure mirrors its subject matter, moving with a disorienting rhythm that reflects the instability of addiction and moral collapse.
👉By the final pages, Kill Dick leaves a lingering sense of unease rather than closure, a choice that reinforces its thematic core.
Happy reading 😊
Review of advance copy
I recently read Kill Dick by Luke Goebel, and it turned out to be one of the most intense and unusual literary thrillers I’ve come across in a while. From the very beginning, the story feels chaotic, dark, and strangely captivating.
The novel follows Susie Vogelman, a nineteen-year-old who seems to have everything—money, privilege, and freedom—but is also deeply lost. Living in Los Angeles with no direction and surrounded by addiction, she spends her days drifting through a world of prescription pills and empty luxury. As a reader, I found Susie both frustrating and fascinating. She isn’t a perfect character, but that’s what makes her feel real.
What really pulls the story forward is the series of brutal murders targeting addicts across the city. As the investigation and rumors spread, Susie begins to realize that the violence may be connected to the same world of power and corruption that her own family is part of. The connection between wealth, addiction, and exploitation becomes clearer as the story moves along.
Another interesting character is Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor who runs a questionable rehab scheme. When Susie and Peter’s lives cross, the story becomes even more complicated. Their interactions add a mix of dark humor, tension, and unpredictability. At times the story feels like a fever dream, but that seems intentional because it reflects the unstable world the characters are living in.
What I appreciated most about this novel is its sharp satire. It doesn’t just tell a crime story; it also questions privilege, hypocrisy, and the systems that allow corruption to grow. The writing style is bold and sometimes unsettling, but it fits the mood of the book.
Overall, Kill Dick is a dark, daring, and thought-provoking novel that explores the messy side of modern life, especially where power and addiction collide. Readers who enjoy edgy literary thrillers will likely find it memorable.
The novel follows Susie Vogelman, a nineteen-year-old who seems to have everything—money, privilege, and freedom—but is also deeply lost. Living in Los Angeles with no direction and surrounded by addiction, she spends her days drifting through a world of prescription pills and empty luxury. As a reader, I found Susie both frustrating and fascinating. She isn’t a perfect character, but that’s what makes her feel real.
What really pulls the story forward is the series of brutal murders targeting addicts across the city. As the investigation and rumors spread, Susie begins to realize that the violence may be connected to the same world of power and corruption that her own family is part of. The connection between wealth, addiction, and exploitation becomes clearer as the story moves along.
Another interesting character is Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor who runs a questionable rehab scheme. When Susie and Peter’s lives cross, the story becomes even more complicated. Their interactions add a mix of dark humor, tension, and unpredictability. At times the story feels like a fever dream, but that seems intentional because it reflects the unstable world the characters are living in.
What I appreciated most about this novel is its sharp satire. It doesn’t just tell a crime story; it also questions privilege, hypocrisy, and the systems that allow corruption to grow. The writing style is bold and sometimes unsettling, but it fits the mood of the book.
Overall, Kill Dick is a dark, daring, and thought-provoking novel that explores the messy side of modern life, especially where power and addiction collide. Readers who enjoy edgy literary thrillers will likely find it memorable.
April 17, 2026
Kill Dick by Luke B. Goebel is a ferocious, high-voltage literary thriller that thrives on chaos, satire, and psychological disintegration. Set against the fractured landscape of Los Angeles, the novel doesn’t just tell a story, it dismantles systems of privilege, addiction, and complicity with unsettling precision.
At the center is Susie Vogelman, a protagonist whose life of excess and detachment becomes increasingly unstable as violence encroaches on her insulated world. Her characterization is particularly effective because it resists simplification, she is neither purely victim nor villain, but a product of the very systems the novel critiques. This ambiguity gives the narrative its edge, forcing the reader to confront uncomfortable intersections of wealth, power, and accountability.
The collision between Susie and Peter Holiday introduces a volatile dynamic that accelerates the story into darker territory. Peter’s morally compromised position—operating within a fraudulent rehabilitation system—mirrors the broader institutional decay the novel explores. Together, their trajectories expose a network of corruption that feels both exaggerated and disturbingly plausible.
Stylistically, the book leans into a fever-dream intensity. The pacing is relentless, the tone sharp, and the satire cutting. Rather than offering resolution or comfort, Kill Dick amplifies tension and disorientation, reflecting the instability of its characters and the world they inhabit. This approach elevates the novel beyond conventional thriller territory into something more literary and confrontational.
Ultimately, Kill Dick succeeds because it commits fully to its vision. It is dark, provocative, and unapologetically critical—challenging readers to engage with the destructive interplay between privilege and consequence. For those drawn to literary thrillers that push boundaries and interrogate societal structures, this is a striking and memorable work.
At the center is Susie Vogelman, a protagonist whose life of excess and detachment becomes increasingly unstable as violence encroaches on her insulated world. Her characterization is particularly effective because it resists simplification, she is neither purely victim nor villain, but a product of the very systems the novel critiques. This ambiguity gives the narrative its edge, forcing the reader to confront uncomfortable intersections of wealth, power, and accountability.
The collision between Susie and Peter Holiday introduces a volatile dynamic that accelerates the story into darker territory. Peter’s morally compromised position—operating within a fraudulent rehabilitation system—mirrors the broader institutional decay the novel explores. Together, their trajectories expose a network of corruption that feels both exaggerated and disturbingly plausible.
Stylistically, the book leans into a fever-dream intensity. The pacing is relentless, the tone sharp, and the satire cutting. Rather than offering resolution or comfort, Kill Dick amplifies tension and disorientation, reflecting the instability of its characters and the world they inhabit. This approach elevates the novel beyond conventional thriller territory into something more literary and confrontational.
Ultimately, Kill Dick succeeds because it commits fully to its vision. It is dark, provocative, and unapologetically critical—challenging readers to engage with the destructive interplay between privilege and consequence. For those drawn to literary thrillers that push boundaries and interrogate societal structures, this is a striking and memorable work.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This one is not here to comfort you… it’s here to drag you.
Kill Dick is chaotic, brutal, and razor sharp in a way that feels too real. It exposes a story instead of telling one. And I was hooked and horrified the entire time.
Susie Vogelman is the definition of “privileged but unraveling”. Numbed out, floating through life on pills and denial, insulated by wealth but completely hollow underneath. Watching her slow collision with reality was like witnessing a car crash you can’t look away from. The deeper you get, the uglier it becomes.
And then there’s Peter… messy, manipulative, running a rehab scam that somehow feels both absurd and all very real. Their dynamic? Toxic, desperate, and completely gripping.
The backdrop of Los Angeles is dripping in rot. Glamour on the surface, decay underneath. It gave me those dark, sun-soaked noir vibes...like a modern descent into hell hiding behind palm trees and money. The writing is sharp, almost unhinged at times, but completely intentional. It cuts deep into addiction, wealth, exploitation, and the systems that quietly allow all of it to thrive.
What really stuck with me is how this book handles complicity. No one is innocent. Not fully. And it forces you to sit with that discomfort. To question where the line is between survival and self-destruction… and whether there even is one.
It’s violent, satirical, and deeply unsettling but there’s a purpose behind every brutal moment. Nothing feels like shock for the sake of it. It all builds into this suffocating, spiraling tension that just keeps tightening.
This is one of those reads that leaves you feeling a little sick, a little angry, and very awake.
I know addiction all to well so this one really sat with me. (Happy to say I am sober over a year now)
Thank you so much Netgalley, Luke B. Gospel, and Red Hen Press for the #gifted earc.
All opinions are my own 🖤
Kill Dick is chaotic, brutal, and razor sharp in a way that feels too real. It exposes a story instead of telling one. And I was hooked and horrified the entire time.
Susie Vogelman is the definition of “privileged but unraveling”. Numbed out, floating through life on pills and denial, insulated by wealth but completely hollow underneath. Watching her slow collision with reality was like witnessing a car crash you can’t look away from. The deeper you get, the uglier it becomes.
And then there’s Peter… messy, manipulative, running a rehab scam that somehow feels both absurd and all very real. Their dynamic? Toxic, desperate, and completely gripping.
The backdrop of Los Angeles is dripping in rot. Glamour on the surface, decay underneath. It gave me those dark, sun-soaked noir vibes...like a modern descent into hell hiding behind palm trees and money. The writing is sharp, almost unhinged at times, but completely intentional. It cuts deep into addiction, wealth, exploitation, and the systems that quietly allow all of it to thrive.
What really stuck with me is how this book handles complicity. No one is innocent. Not fully. And it forces you to sit with that discomfort. To question where the line is between survival and self-destruction… and whether there even is one.
It’s violent, satirical, and deeply unsettling but there’s a purpose behind every brutal moment. Nothing feels like shock for the sake of it. It all builds into this suffocating, spiraling tension that just keeps tightening.
This is one of those reads that leaves you feeling a little sick, a little angry, and very awake.
I know addiction all to well so this one really sat with me. (Happy to say I am sober over a year now)
Thank you so much Netgalley, Luke B. Gospel, and Red Hen Press for the #gifted earc.
All opinions are my own 🖤
April 12, 2026
Thank you so much to both the author and Red Hen Press for sending me an ARC and to Netgalley and Brilliance Audio for providing me with the ALC. You’re the best! Sharon Freedman, the narrator of the audiobook did a wonderful job embodying the novel, a great listen!
OUT APRIL 14th!!!
I have had the utter delight of getting to know Luke, here on Instagram, and he is always an inspiring mix of generous, intelligent, outspoken (on the right side of history) and down to earth, with a splash of glamorous lifestyle! I think he’s the perfect person to tell this story and when you pick it up you’ll see what I mean. The characters are flawed, but making an effort to see beyond the state of things, to challenge the systems, to avenge the lives of the people they love and to save the city and themselves from billionaire ego-maniacs.
We follow, most closely, Susie (an NYU dropout), “Peter” (her former professor) and Royal Lee (my favorite and I’d protect them with my life). Through biting satire, dark humor and cinematic technicolor noir (is that contradictory — somehow he just does it) we explore the violence, privilege, and corrupt pharmaceuticals taking over LA and the country at large as we investigate a string of murders. These are not perfect heroes, and often look a lot more like villains or nihilistic bystanders but in the end it sends this hopeful message of doing your part, within your own journey, and reinforces that there is no such thing as perfect victims or perfect resistance. It’s set during the lead up to the 2016 election with so many well-known players eluded to with a wink and a nod, but it feels, in the state of things, quite timely and relevant NOW.
Frustrating, touching, and ultimately inspiring I devoured this, and found myself really marinating in the insightful observations, calls to action and honesty. It feels empathetic while being so deeply twisted — a feat to pull off, and I left the novel feeling for this trio… being proud of them. Royal Lee, especially, was such a vivid light in this dark novel and watching them come into themself was beautiful.
OUT APRIL 14th!!!
I have had the utter delight of getting to know Luke, here on Instagram, and he is always an inspiring mix of generous, intelligent, outspoken (on the right side of history) and down to earth, with a splash of glamorous lifestyle! I think he’s the perfect person to tell this story and when you pick it up you’ll see what I mean. The characters are flawed, but making an effort to see beyond the state of things, to challenge the systems, to avenge the lives of the people they love and to save the city and themselves from billionaire ego-maniacs.
We follow, most closely, Susie (an NYU dropout), “Peter” (her former professor) and Royal Lee (my favorite and I’d protect them with my life). Through biting satire, dark humor and cinematic technicolor noir (is that contradictory — somehow he just does it) we explore the violence, privilege, and corrupt pharmaceuticals taking over LA and the country at large as we investigate a string of murders. These are not perfect heroes, and often look a lot more like villains or nihilistic bystanders but in the end it sends this hopeful message of doing your part, within your own journey, and reinforces that there is no such thing as perfect victims or perfect resistance. It’s set during the lead up to the 2016 election with so many well-known players eluded to with a wink and a nod, but it feels, in the state of things, quite timely and relevant NOW.
Frustrating, touching, and ultimately inspiring I devoured this, and found myself really marinating in the insightful observations, calls to action and honesty. It feels empathetic while being so deeply twisted — a feat to pull off, and I left the novel feeling for this trio… being proud of them. Royal Lee, especially, was such a vivid light in this dark novel and watching them come into themself was beautiful.
May 11, 2026
Kill Dick by Luke B. Goebel is a darkly satirical literary thriller that dives headfirst into addiction, corruption, privilege, and moral decay with relentless intensity and stylistic boldness.
What makes this novel especially compelling is its fearless confrontation of systemic rot beneath wealth and influence. Through Susie Vogelman’s unraveling world and the violent chaos surrounding Los Angeles, Goebel exposes the toxic intersections of addiction, power, exploitation, and inherited privilege in ways that feel both disturbing and sharply observant.
The novel also stands out for its feverish atmosphere and narrative energy. The story moves with a sense of escalating instability where every relationship, institution, and attempt at escape feels compromised by deeper corruption. This creates a reading experience that feels immersive, volatile, and psychologically charged.
Another major strength lies in the novel’s satirical edge. Beneath the violence and chaos is a cutting critique of opioid profiteering, performative morality, elite culture, and systems that profit from human destruction while pretending to offer salvation. The characters feel morally fractured in ways that mirror the larger world around them.
Dark, provocative, and stylistically fearless, Kill Dick will resonate strongly with readers of literary thrillers, transgressive fiction, psychological noir, and socially conscious contemporary fiction that interrogates addiction, privilege, and cultural collapse.
What makes this novel especially compelling is its fearless confrontation of systemic rot beneath wealth and influence. Through Susie Vogelman’s unraveling world and the violent chaos surrounding Los Angeles, Goebel exposes the toxic intersections of addiction, power, exploitation, and inherited privilege in ways that feel both disturbing and sharply observant.
The novel also stands out for its feverish atmosphere and narrative energy. The story moves with a sense of escalating instability where every relationship, institution, and attempt at escape feels compromised by deeper corruption. This creates a reading experience that feels immersive, volatile, and psychologically charged.
Another major strength lies in the novel’s satirical edge. Beneath the violence and chaos is a cutting critique of opioid profiteering, performative morality, elite culture, and systems that profit from human destruction while pretending to offer salvation. The characters feel morally fractured in ways that mirror the larger world around them.
Dark, provocative, and stylistically fearless, Kill Dick will resonate strongly with readers of literary thrillers, transgressive fiction, psychological noir, and socially conscious contemporary fiction that interrogates addiction, privilege, and cultural collapse.
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