Evil Genius

by Claire Oshetsky

An exuberant novel about a young woman’s quest to carve her own path—even if she needs to step over a few dead bodies along the way

It’s 1974 and San Francisco is full of mystery and menace. Nineteen-year-old Celia Dent keeps telling herself how lucky she is to be married to Drew, a man who says he loves her. But Celia’s contentment with her little life is shattered when a woman she knows is murdered in a love tryst gone awry. What would that be like, Celia wonders, to die—or kill—for love? What would it be like to live each moment passionately and with full knowledge that each breath is bringing her closer to her final breath?

Before Celia knows it her musings about love-and-death happenings are bleeding into daily life. She’s practicing her marksmanship at a local gun range. She's searching for a love tryst of her very own. She's thinking about how good it would feel to bury something sharp inside her domineering husband’s ear. It’s all pretend, though, until the night comes when Celia finally goes too far, and she and Drew are set on a deadly collision course.

Exhilarating, surreal, and bitingly clever, Evil Genius is a comic noir about obsession and desire—and what happens when a sweetly seditious young woman dares to imagine a better life for herself.

Claire Oshetsky is also the author of the novels Poor Deer and Chouette, which was longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Thriller, Literary Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook

1 pages, Audio CD

First published February 17, 2026

About the author

"Listen! I will be honest with you, I do not offer the old smooth prizes..."
- Walt Whitman

I review books here on goodreads as a reader, for the most part, and not as a writer. Come follow or friend me on my reviewer's page. if you like.

I visit this page so infrequently that I won't be accepting friend requests here.

Now and then I'll be leaving reviews on goodreads as "Claire Oshetsky" but only for those books that have influenced me as a writer.

Reviews

[Claire Oshetsky]

It's July 6 2025 and the first review copies of Evil Genius will be out in 10 days and the story will no longer belong to me.

I'm spending a quiet time today, thinking about why I wrote this novel the way I did. You could say Evil Genius was written in reaction to the melancholy of my last novel, Poor Deer. I'm not sure if Evil Genius a funny novel, exactly, but I had fun writing it. I let the sentences build and grow in ludicrous and weedy ways. If you read the novel then you will eventually get to somebody shouting: The goddamn dog-walker left the doggone dog room door open again! I've told her a hundred times to latch it tight!, and when you do I hope you remember you read it first right here.

[Emily May · Rating 4 out of 5]

And all these many years later, as I’m telling you a story about a nineteen-year-old girl who thought she was in love with her husband, I begin to ask myself a question or two. For instance. Has it already crossed the girl’s mind back on that gorgeous, sun-dazzle morning, as she gazes at her husband’s tranquil sleeping face, that she wants him dead?

I am not sure why this book is being tagged as "horror". It's literary fiction about coercive control and abuse, set in 1970s San Francisco, and even the nods toward magical realism seem to be firmly in the narrator's head. I would not describe it as horror.

To be honest, I thought for a while the book might be a little too offbeat for my tastes. Celia was almost too much of a weirdo, even for myself, especially all that crackadoodle about a Crab Queen and her bizarre collection of dolls, but her story quickly grew compelling enough that I forgave these oddities. It is also very readable, which helps.

What begins as a character portrait of an eccentric young woman grows into a powerful story about how small, subtle acts of control and manipulation evolve into abuse, and also how someone can justify their abusive relationship to themselves:

The feeling carries you through the bad patches. Only you can see the truth about this man of yours—that he’s helpless without you. You respond to him the way you’d respond to your own child. And you call this feeling “love.” It’s a powerful feeling. It makes you stay. Don’t you feel the truth of it? Don’t you see? I wasn’t the victim. I was the rock.

Celia's dry narration of "My Drew"'s many concerning behaviours works brilliantly. The reader watches in horror as she normalises his power plays and manipulation. But Celia is not quite a helpless victim. When she hears about a co-worker murdered by her husband, Celia's fantasies become darker and she toys with the idea of upending her life in a bloody way.

It's pretty deranged, but in the way Ventura's My Husband is deranged. So I enjoyed it.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Celia is a nineteen year old telephone operator in 1970’s San Francisco, married to Drew, who is extremely controlling.
Celia becomes quite obsessed about love and death when her coworker is murdered by her own husband in a crime of passion.
Celia starts off as a meek character… putting up with her husband’s angry tirades… and then things change, she becomes empowered by some friends at work.
Lots of action packed situations that Celia becomes involved in.
This is a darkly comic, extremely entertaining and fast read.
Celia is quirky, offbeat, unhinged but lovable.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one as I have this author’s previous novels!
I devoured this one.. highly recommend!

Thank you to Netgalley through Ecco, for the gifted ARC, in exchange for an honest review!

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A darkly comic, action-packed novel, including questionable decisions, cruel and illegal acts, some convenient coincidences, and shocking consequences. 19-year-old Celia is overcoming trauma, wreaking revenge, and striving for a free, happy, and authentic life.

The opening chapter is titled “The Cliffhanger”, which proved true: I read the whole book in a single sitting. Randall is telling coworkers how Vivienne Bianco was murdered by her husband while he was hiding under the bed. He's cut short before he can finish the story, but it sets Celia thinking about life, death, and murder.
“It’s a strange but true fact that a typical person living in these modern times will cross paths with thirty-six actual, in-the-flesh murderers in their lifetime, along with seventy-seven people who are destined to be murdered.”

It’s a distraction from her dull job in a telephone company billing office in 1974 San Francisco:
“On the third floor of a six-floor building on Fourth Street.”
People call with sob stories to excuse late payment, usually in vain. The staff “rip their lips” (cut their telephone contract) with relish, and joke about heavy-breathers who also call.


Image: Cut off: an old-fashioned landline handset, with a severed cord: freedom, or tragedy in waiting?

Celia never knew her father, her mother died recently after paranoia and mental health problems, and she is newly married:
“My Drew never once hit me.”
But he does push, demean, control, and gaslight her.

In her reverie, she plays with counterfactual versions of who was manipulating who in the unfinished story, and wonders what it would be like to murder someone. She wants to know more about Randall and Vivienne, so she starts socialising more with coworkers. One thing leads to another…

Nothing in the narrative is wasted, and it’s great fun, but with plenty of depth as well.

Note I read an uncorrected proof; the final publication may differ slightly.

See also

• This is lighter, and in some ways more realistic, than Oshetsky’s other two novels, though quirkiness and a love of birds and animals is common to all. See my reviews:
• Chouette, 4*, HERE.
• Poor Deer, 5*, HERE.

• For a different take on dull office life, see Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine, which I reviewed HERE.

• The thrill, sometimes sexual, of thinking about and seeing sudden death reminded me of JG Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition, which I reviewed HERE, and his Crash, which I’ve not read.

• Reading this, I recalled the (fictitious) conundrum of whether Ronald Opus’s death was murder or suicide. See HERE.

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Talk about a wild ride! This is Oshetsky's best work yet.

👉 Click here to watch my Best Books of 2025 video. 📚🐛



Would leap to recommend this to fans of Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth and/or The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff.

📝 Thoughts & Observations Log below (spoiler free) 👇

PART 1 - THE CLIFFHANGER

Already loving this book's wry humor. And as protagonist's go, Celia is a riot (a dark and twisted, strange and amusing riot).

Page 12 just sold me on this book. I'm laughing so hard! 🤣

PART 2 - A DROP OF WINE

I love when an author drops a few subtle clues that make you suspect something's not right, and then you turn a page and—💥BOOM!💥—your suspicions are confirmed AND things are much worse than you even imagined.

😀 Very curious to see where this is going . . .

PART 3 - ELEVEN MINUTES TO SPARE

Picture me glued to this book because an unhinged character with dangerous thoughts is one thing, but an unhinged character with dangerous thoughts AND A WEAPON is quite another! 🍿🫣

PART 4 - LONG-LEGGED CRABS

I guess Celia is biding her time? Nothing to report for Part 4. 🤷‍♀️

PART 5 - KEEP MOVING THROUGH IT

A subtle shift in tone here as we glimpse Celia's relationship with her mother-in-law and learn more about her past.

I hope we get a few more doses of dark humor in the chapters that follow.

PART 6 - THE SOCK MAN

I can't say whether this part about a man and his sock was funny or uncomfortable. I just know that I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how things would play out. 👨🧦🎤

PART 7 - HELLO, WIFE

Holy hell. 🫢 Every chapter in this part had me grinding my teeth, or gasping aloud, or biting my nails. Good stuff!

PART 8 - SMALL PLASTIC LIVES

I can't make heads or tails of Celia's thinking. One minute she loves her (abusive) husband and imagines herself having children with him, and the next minute she's saying she might want to kill him.

I know she's only 19, was likely groomed, and is accustomed to abuse, but even knowing all that, I'm left scratching my head.

I'm ready for Celia to take drastic action.

PART 9 - LOVE AND DEATH

MY JAW IS ON THE FLOOR! 😮

PART 10 - THE CONFESSION

So many threads of this book are converging in ways I never expected. Brilliant!

PART 11 - LOVE AND LIFE

Okay, I really like the ending overall, but I can't help wishing the final page had done more for me. Nonetheless, this was a great read!

👉Pub date: February 17, 2026.

My deepest gratitude to the kind people at Ecco for sending me an advanced reading copy.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Welcome to the work of evil genius that is my latest favorite Bildungsroman! It may be a crowded field, since I do tend to favor this type of story, but this one still stands out unlike any other.


…And, this makes sense, because I think this author has established a sound record of writing books that nobody else could have written, and telling stories that nobody else could have told, in so few pages and using language that nobody else could have come up with.


Indeed: the language in this book is so uniquely wonderful that I find myself cowed in my attempt to harness language of my own to describe how much I loved it. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a book this much on the sentence level in a long time, or in quite this way. The sentences were so funny and surprising that there were many times when I just sort of delightedly and internally exclaimed, “Oh!” at the end of one.


The story itself is also delightful and surprising; you never quite know which way it is going to go. As with the author’s previous works, there is first an engaging “surface story” that can be somewhat fantastical or surreal, or even entail an element of magic realism. This one is more grounded in reality, but it is still a delightful hyperbolic adventure, a bit of a madcap caper, in which Celia Dent, an only nineteen-year-old, married (this is important), phone company billing call center employee in 1974 San Francisco, experiences a series of life-altering epiphanies and events triggered by the uxoricide of a woman with whom a male call center colleague was having a “love tryst.” Celia’s thinking and behavior are forever altered in response to this catalyst.


I don’t want to reveal more and risk giving away any spoilers, and I don’t need to share any further, as the novel will carry you right along once you begin. Aside from the domino effect of startling plot events, there is also another characteristic layer of thought-provoking enjoyment to this novel in its unusual, metaphorical and symbolic consideration of important themes that are also explored in the author’s previous works. Among others, these include the quest for personal liberation and freedom, the journey of recovery and integration after trauma, and the task of self-actualization and understanding and owning one’s individuality and identity.


And, there is a very wonderful dog character who ends up safe from harm.


I highly recommend this creative, darkly funny yet deep, startling and extraordinary story by a true artist with an astounding imaginative capacity. Thanks to NetGalley, Ecco, and the author for the ARC.

[Dona's Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pre-Read Notes:

This title suggested a story about someone with mental illness, which is a form de jour at the moment. I read these to see how mentally ill characters are being depicted in contemporary fiction.

"What Drew didn’t know is that I couldn’t be shamed that way. Not any longer. I’d learned from Doggo’s example. I would never again let myself be shamed by my body, or its functions, or its urges." p134

Final Review

(thoughts & recs) How time flies when you're stable and happy.

I loved the form of this story, and I'm so so picky about the stream-of-consciousness. The treatment of time creates an entertaining read with well done meta moments.

Simultaneously, it comments on time--in stories and in life--about moments that creep by in agonizing detail and whole decades that disappear in a single sentence about love.

What a treat that I finished this on Valentine's. EVIL GENIUS is not a romance but it's still my favorite love story ever.

I recommend this one to fans of The Guest by Emma Cline or Tilt by Emma Pattee.

My Favorite Things:

✔️ The use of Barbie dolls in this story is freaking brilliant. Iconic and symbolic here for the traumatized brain's desperate search for safety. This is such a good use of a setting element; the world create by this character's thought habit becomes its own character.

✔️ "Here was Helen. Her smile made me feel as if I were part of nature, not a flawed human being. No one thinks a tree isn’t beautiful. No one thinks a craggy hill is ugly just because it’s craggy, either. That’s the way Helen made me feel. Like a tree on a craggy hill." p143 Oh man this narrator is so vulnerable all through this chapter and I remember being this age, traumatized, part of a loveless world, and thinking I was falling in love with every human who showed me kindness or let me connect. I think this writer shows great restraint in the way she develops this character, who is held together by the details. It would be tempting to reveal too much here, and she doesn't. I interpret this detail as compassion for the character and readers.

✔️ This is not accurate: "One side effect of industrialization is an explosion of despair. Back in the day, when all labor was menial labor, we humans never had time to fret over our own despair. Now we have plenty of free time and we use our time to ponder the pain and meaninglessness of our fragile existences..." p147 Industrialization *is* connected historically to a rise in despair among people who lived in industrial cities. However, it was documented that the despair had more to do with the state of work (risk of danger, exploitation, conditions) than the needing more of it. Health experts widely agree that contemporary adults in the US need more rest and free time, not less of it.

✔️ The description of codependency is eerily accurate, a lighthouse in a giant ocean of misrepresentation and stigma.

Content Notes: DV, gr*pe, emotional and verbal abuse, SA, personal hygiene issues, crank calls, inappropriate callers, car accident, abandonment, animal cruelty, drowning, the ocean

Thank you to the author Claire Oshetsky, Ecco/Harper Collins, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of EVIL GENIUS. All views are mine.

[Tini · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant coming-of-rage story with a narrator that will stay with you.

Happy Publication Day to my favorite new unreliable narrator!

In Evil Genius, Claire Oshetsky invites readers into the delightfully dark - and ever so slightly unhinged - mind of a young woman awakening to the danger and thrill of wanting more from life. Set against the backdrop of 1974 San Francisco, this darkly comic noir hums with the restless energy of a city, and a woman, on the verge of unraveling.

Nineteen-year-old Celia Dent is a newlywed, a telephone operator, and a very good girl - or at least that's what she's been told to be. Her husband Drew is older, controlling, and just horrible all around, though Celia starts out trying to excuse the red flags. But when a coworker is murdered in what seems like a crime of passion, Celia's carefully ordered world fractures. What would it feel like, she wonders, to matter that much to someone - to kill or be killed for love? What begins as idle curiosity soon subtly begins to change the trajectory of her entire life, and whether Celia is losing her grip or discovering it for the first time becomes the book's exquisite tension.

Oshetsky's prose is both surreal and intoxicating, and the 1970s setting is full of texture, from rotary phones and cigarette smoke to the hum of liberation movements just beginning to touch women like Celia. Celia herself is a marvelous creation: she may be naive and simply caught up in a bizarre chain of events, or she may be an unreliable narrator who is secretly an evil genius. Maybe she's a bit of both, and wondering about that while watching her claw her way out of the narrative written for her is both exhilarating and heartbreaking.

Evil Genius is a wicked little gem: darkly funny, disquieting, unflinchingly weird, and oddly empowering. A brilliant, thought-provoking coming-of-rage story with a main character you won't soon forget.

Many thanks to Ecco for providing me with an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

"Evil Genius" publishes TODAY, February 17, 2026.

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 1970s workplace novel turns into a whodunnit. Marital violence is no match for a woman finding her way in life, even if crab queens, valium, a sock man and dreams of turning into a muscular swan make this becoming less straightforward
I felt dangerous and animalistic

Starting off in 1974, we follow Celia, a 19 year old main character who works as debt collector at a phone company. The first chapter focuses on the excitement around an affair gone wrong, including a gunshot and death. This seems a foreshadowing for what Celia herself is to go through.

Initially hexes and a mother that is losing grip on reality show an influence, but soon the relationship between Celia and Drew, her 11 year older husband, comes into focus. He finds all her sexual desires apparently disgusting and uses his power to contain her but really, as Celia emphasises, is not a bad man. Regardless, I did hope Celia ended up offing Drew after the 60% mark of this book.

The talkative manner of the book makes me think a bit of Elizabeth Strout or vintage Margaret Atwood, even though weird things happen.
I am not referring to a Barbie doll (57!) collection and fantasies of flying away like a muscular swan, but also to hearing voices (including those of crab queen).
Celia gets a dirk, which I never knew was a name for a dagger, besides being the name of a missing father to the main character. The adagio of never bringing a sword to a gunfight holds true and things escalate, partly due to phone sex, although I guess valium wouldn't have helped.

Marital violence clearly is a main part of the narrative, and I am happy the story is told by an older, wiser and seemingly more happy Celia. There are clear overtures of how releasing oneself of the limitations of society is important, throwing off convictions about sexuality being one of the main elements. This book overall kept me on my toes and interested in how things would end up for Celia. I think Drew could have been sketched with more nuance, as he felt not a real character to me, even though sadly many, many wives must have gone through their whole life with such spouses.

Quotes:
And expectation can almost be as bad as the real thing

My body was a clenched fist

Valium and a sockman who wants a date with her

What I needed was routine

I was literally in the driver’s seat

It’s about a girl who wants her husband dead.

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much of this story was familiar to me because, once upon a time—a long, long time ago—I, too, married "my Drew" at a young age. Like Drew, he kept me in line, had to know where I was at every moment, accused me of flirtations that didn't exist, and found ways to make everything wrong in his life MY fault. Unlike Celia, though, I was able to get out before any blood was shed.

By the time of "the event" she'd experienced some substantial hardship in her young life, so under the circumstances, who could blame her for sometimes acquiescing to life—simply allowing it to happen to her. I could never fault her for that, and I quietly rooted for Celia every step of the way.

I love this book—it's such a fantastic story and so beautifully-written!! But, mostly, I love it for reminding me that I am a Survivor!✊
❤️💔❤️‍🩹💓💗

5 We–fall–we–break–we fail.–But–then–we–rise–we–heal–we–overcome. stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the title to the epigraph by Walt Whitman (which makes hilarious ironic sense once you finish the book) to the last sentence of the Acknowledgements, I love everything about and in this novel. Protagonist Celia Dent with her practical way of negotiating the unnegotiable is somebody I love and understand.

Once again, the structure of this new Claire Oshetsky book is perfection.

The plot! Where to begin. It's a murder story, but every step of the way, I was surprised and could not imagine what would happen next.

This is my third book by Claire Oshetsky and I want to read anything she writes in the future.

[Liz Hein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This knocked me out in so many ways, cementing Oshetsky as a favorite author. Full review to come, but omg am I gonna be insufferable about this book all year.

[Debbie "DJ" · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author is an amazing storyteller. One of the best I’ve ever read. I can’t believe how they carried me through so much outlandishness and it all seemed perfectly normal. I would follow this author anywhere. Superb!

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Claire Oshetsky consistently views the world from an off-kilter lens. In her first novel, Chouette, she eviscerates society’s failure to accept nonconformity when a woman gives birth to an owl-baby. In her sophomore book, Poor Deer, a young girl is haunted by a cloven-hoofed apparition after she inadvertently causes her four-year-old best friend’s death. And in Evil Genius? She’s at it again when a young wife, stuck in a controlling marriage and a tedious job in the Resident Billing Office at the phone company breaks away from the narrow definitions of acceptable behavior.

We meet Carla Dent when she is just 19 and charged with “ripping the lips” (severing telephone contracts) of customers who are late with their telephone payments. Nothing very exciting happens in the office, so when two colleagues end up having an affair and the husband barges in and kills his wife, Carla is titillated. Particularly since her own husband (“my Drew”), who can’t seem to hold onto a job, expects her home on the dot right after work and always accuses her of being “in a mood.”

In darkly funny scenes, Carla finds herself drawn to some really weird phone customers (like the “Sock Man”), accepting an invitation to meet a narcissist’s new puppy when her train is late (“the goddamn dog-walker left the doggone dog room door open again”), purchasing a little black knife called a dirk, earning the eternal enmity of Mrs. Brisket whose son amassed a fortune in bills calling porn sites, and --- well, I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun.

Suffice to say, despite the outlandish premise, there’s something endearing about Celia and the book really works. As in Claire Oshetsky’s previous two books, the theme is empowerment, as Celia realizes that “no one gets to be the boss of me.” Thanks to Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, for an early copy in exchange for an honest reiew.

[Cortney - Bookworm & Vine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed being in Celia's world and watching her change throughout the story... I would have happily taken another 100 pages and beefed up the story some, but I am so glad I picked it up. 4.25 stars.

[Stephanie (aka WW) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book by its premise and the glowing reviews this author has received for her earlier books among my friends on Goodreads. I was thrilled by the prospect of reading Claire Oshetsky’s newest work and coming to my own conclusions about her ability to draw readers in. And…I’m happy to report that Evil Genius succeeds on all fronts. It delivers on both characterization and plot. The FMC, Chloe, at just 19 years of age and already stuck in (let’s just call it) a weird marriage, is a wonderfully written character. She’s flawed and deeply human, and I rooted for her at every turn in this unusual, but captivating, novel.

Having enjoyed this book thoroughly, I now plan to go back and read the author’s previous books, Poor Deer and Chouette.

Much thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for providing me with access to the e-ARC of this book for review.

[ritareadthat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evil Genius by Claire Oshetsky is being pitched as a comic noir. It is comic. It is noir. It is tremendously undervalued to leave it at that. There is immense depth to be found if you find yourself willing to look.

It's 1974 in San Fran, and Celia is 19, married to Drew, a more than poor excuse for a husband, and she works at a phone company. The gossip at work is about a murder that has been committed of a company employee by her husband, but this is only the tip of a very large iceberg that sets the wheels in motion for what is to come.

There are Barbies. There is a Sock Man. A Crab Queen. There are traditional Highland Scottish sidearms. There is self-doubt and gaslighting. There are misplaced and then rectified perspectives. There are struggles with identity and sexuality. There is learning to reclaim our lives and our autonomy. There is grieving for those we lost, those we will lose, and those we barely know.

I loved this book for all of the ways it touched me: by invoking tears, laughter, sadness, and anger. If a book makes me feel deeply, it has my heart. I have not yet read Poor Deer by the author, but I have recently read Chouette. While these are both surmised to be based in fantasy/magical realism, Evil Genius is firmly grounded in possible reality with a slightly absurd, yet not unrealistic, twist. I think it is magically successful. Celia stole my heart, and if you root for meek and marginally passive heroines, then I think she will steal yours too.

While I am unable to quote from my ARC copy, please don't doubt that the book is full of many highly worthy quotable passages. However, because I just can't not quote SOMETHING, the following quotes came to mind while reading.

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." — Anaïs Nin

"You had the power all along my dear." — Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Many thanks to Ecco Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Ruben · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author says she 'had fun' writing this and indeed the joy of storytelling leaps off the page. There is a love for certain peculiar words and quaint expressions that had me smiling throughout.

The book is set in the 1970s, and our young narrator - 19 year old Celia - explains how a colleague has been murdered by her husband while her lover - another colleague of Celia's - was hiding under the bed. The murder triggers profound changes in Celia's life too, who is unhappily married to a controlling husband.

It's a quick read, inspired by a John Cheever story, and has Mad Men vibes too. I guess you could call it a crime caper (?) but it has a warm and cozy feeling (which is also the atmosphere I remember from Oshetsky's previous novel Poor Deer).

It veers on the absurd (my favourite scene is when a fantastically strange character called Sock Man stands behind Celia and 'drapes' a sock over her shoulder) and the plot is over the top, but at the same time the story remains completely believable and logical.

I love books (and movies or series) that manage to be comical and humane at the same time.

Many thanks to Netgalley and publisher for the e-ARC.

[Angie Miale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Standout funny novel set in the mid 20th century. Celia’s husband Drew is just awful. I laughed a lot. TW for gaslighting but this is a fiercely feminist novel that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

[michelle ࣪ ִֶָ☾ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 rounded down. I'm glad that a lot of early reviewers seem to have gotten something from this, but it just didn't quite do it for me.

The writing was hit or miss. While generally the narration had it's entertaining moments, and there were a few sections that were quite well done and stuck with me, a lot of it just lacked the same rhythm and felt almost awkward. Some of it just felt like it was trying way too hard to be eccentric. And some of the dialogue, especially from Drew, the fmc's husband, was so bad it just took me out of it.

A few lines at the ending kind of seemed to want me to believe that the fmc was in fact an evil genius, and if that's the case - I do not agree in the slightest. She wasn't an unlikable narrator, I'm a big weird girl fan, but it did feel like there was a lot of build up just for her to not have much involvement in the actual climax of the novel at all.

I feel like this started strong with a good set up, and while I appreciate some of the themes that were driven home here, overall it ended up being a bit disappointing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another exquisite novel from Claire Oshetsky! While I still think Poor Deer is my favorite work of theirs, Evil Genius absolutely soars. It is tense and gripping, and while on the surface it may seem like a zany 1970s true crime story, like every Oshetsky novel there are so many layers to uncover.

At first going into Evil Genius I was startled by how different it seemed from Poor Deer and Chouette, but the more I kept reading and analyzing the text, the more I see how brilliantly the novels are connected thematically. Every Oshetsky novel has a female protagonist who is coming of age, dealing with trauma, and has been othered by conventional society. Celia Dent I reckon is Oshetsky's most memorable protagonist yet - she is irreverent but constrained due to circumstance, and throughout the novel we get to see her break out of her shell and embrace her true spirit. Celia also feels the most grounded of Oshetsky's othered protagonists. While Tiny in Chouette and Margaret in Poor Deer deal with their traumas through magical realism (owl baby and a deer no one but her can see), Celia's trauma is in front of her all the time: misogyny, the patriarchy, being forced into the closet (literally in one instance!), and not being truly liberated. Largely by societal circumstance, Celia is forced into her condition and it is up to her to liberate herself.

I also was worried at first that the themes in Evil Genius were going to be surface level, especially with the focus on "love and death". However, Oshetsky proved me wrong as the theme continued to come back with more force and through a kaleidoscope of memorable characters, from Celia and Drew, to Helen, to Mrs. Brisket, and of course to Vivienne and Gene Bianco.

I also was fascinated at Oshetsky's decision to have an older Celia recount the events from 1974 to frame the story. The parallel with Poor Deer in this instance is intriguing; Margaret is trying to tell her story in Poor Deer in the moment and keeps messing up/revising, while an older Celia who is much more sure of herself is describing her coming of age in the past tense. While Celia may not be 100% reliable, she now knows who she is as a person and is trying to reconcile with her past self as means of healing from her trauma.

My last thing I will say is now I want to read John Cheever thanks to the acknowledgements. I'd love to see where Oshetsky drew inspriation from for this one-of-a-kind story. So happy my most anticipated read of the year lived up to the hype and all hail the Crab Queen!

[Kip Kyburz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book both highly unique yet right in line with ouevre of Claire Oshetsky. Consistently hilarious, we follow the story of Celia Dent, our 19-year-old phone company employee in 70's San Francisco, stuck in a fraught marriage and trapped in her circumstances, until she wakes up and decides upon a different path. Evil Genius is plottier than her previous works but gives us every bit of the interiority into our protagonist that we would desire. It has some of the makings of a murder thriller, but I think largely avoids fitting neatly into any certain genre due to a wonderful off-kilterness in how Celia sees the world and her place in it. Another winning book you will devour as quickly as you can.

[lglh · Rating 2 out of 5]

the repeated and unironic use of doggo made my whole body tense up.

[Yahaira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to ecco books for the arc

When I reviewed Poor Deer two years ago I ended that review with “Poor Deer is a magical read and has sealed Oshetsky as an auto-buy author for me and I can't wait to see how they push themselves next.” I’m excited to say they’ve outdone themselves. This is dark humor at its most potent: absurd, surreal, and leaning into a sort of comic noir that feels both campy and deeply unsettling. (And wait, was that a Poor Deer Easter egg I spotted?)

This book is pure, unadulterated "good for her" energy.

God, the way I fell in love with Celia. I didn’t care what outlandish thing she was doing or saying next, I went right along with her, wanting the best for her. I think that���s the magic of Oshetsky’s writing, she makes me believe in all her characters, even ones that are casually imagining their husband’s demise with a nail file. I’m like yes, girl, let’s manifest! I believe in her, but do I trust her? We’re listening to an older Celia recount these events from the 70s, and she isn’t above changing details here and there. I feel like this is a coming of age novel that’s also a meditation on how we curate our own histories to survive them. Man I hope that makes sense.

A little bit of plot summary: it’s the 1970’s in San Francisco and 19 yo Celia is a bit of a daydreamer, a little lonely, and is trapped in a marriage to a truly bottom-tier man (thanks, Mom). She’s working at the phone company when a scandal involving an affair and a murder breaks out. Celia is pretty much all of us and wants to know more so she starts socializing with her coworkers.

As her world expands so does the audacity of her imagination. I won't spoil the domino effect she sets off, but it is a breathless ride. I finished this in a single sitting, unable to look away from the beautiful, chaotic momentum of it all.

But beneath the zany, almost madcap momentum of the plot, there is a surprising amount of heart. Oshetsky’s prose is as stunning as always; sharp enough to cut, but used her to carve out a really tender portrait of loneliness and the desire to finally be seen. Even when the story leans into the surreal, it never loses its emotional tether.

[Vmndetta ᛑᛗᛛ · Rating 2 out of 5]

looks like we have different opinions about this book. for me, it was boring and not 'fun' enough to keep my interest and grab my attention. it was just hard to get into the book. so i ended up skimming most parts until the end. either way, let's be honest, i expected more from this book.

[Phyllis · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Claire Oshetsky writes it, I will read it! We are 3 for 3 on excellent novels so far, and I’ll be counting the days until the next one.

Nineteen-year-old Celia Dent is a kind, naive, intelligent recently-orphaned young woman in a marriage she does not yet believe is a bad one. Over just a few weeks, a series of encounters of the true-crime sort bring her into the beginnings of her full self.

Set in 1974 San Francisco, as told by Celia’s 65-yo future self. What an amazing voice Celia has.

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

at no point did i see what was coming in this book.
hated the constant use of “doggo” 🫩

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a little fever dream of a book. It is a story about Celia Dent, a young wife in the Bay Area married off too soon following her mother's death. She ends up with a scrub tech who is the average nasty 70s American male, 3 steps shy of serial killer but passing as a decent husband. She is regularly abused but confuses that with love because what else is there? Starved for (positive) attention, she starts to daydream about a love tryst that led to a shooting of a coworker while her hatred of her husband begins to surface. She takes risks, drinking and staying out, but also arms herself because she knows how vulnerable she is on some level. Celia's musings and wonderings seem off kilter but also right for a young girl who has not known kindness and still partially lives in the world of fantasy. Despite having no one in her life to help her orient herself, Celia manages to get her life right and gets lucky along the way. Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

[ianthereader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Watch my video review here:

Evil Genius - Claire Oshetsky - Spoiler-Free Book Review
https://youtu.be/XTwilcqXf-Q


I believe Claire Oshetsky is the true evil genius.