Thank you HQ Digital and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. IYKYK, my reviews are always honest.
One sentence review: It had all the right ingredients but the proverbial baking soda was expired so this did not rise to expectations
SYNOPSIS
Popular Instagram influencer Kitty is rich and lil bored. When she accidentally k!lls a certified creepo who followed her home from the bar, she seemingly finds her true calling: k!lling r@pists. But with a stalker watching her every move, will she be able to get away with it?
MY OPINION
UGHHHHH!!!! I REALLY wanted to love this one, or at least slap a Honda Civic Reliable rating on there and call it a day. Women nurdering r@pists? Yes please. And doing so with tongue in cheek humor? Double yes please. Plus, cmon, that title is everything! This was shaping up to be a dark Finlay Donovan-esque book, but unfortunately, it was not meant to be for me 😢 The reason I finished this is because I was hoping and praying it was sort itself out for at least a three star but.... nah.
Kitty could've been a great character, but the inconsistencies in her behaviour and logic made her hella annoying. In short, she was hypocritical. She loved bankrolling her life with her Instagram money but constantly bitched about what it meant to be an influencer. And despite considering herself intellectually superior to everyone on the planet, Kitty surrounds herself with vapid, shallow friends from similar wealthy backgrounds. When she literally said "I'm not like these other girls" I wanted to yack. Sweetie, your propensity to pop pills, down straight shots of vodka, and throw money at your problems makes you JUST like the girlies that run in your circle.
Another point of contention was the author's cringeworthy pandering and using this book as an opportunity to promote veganism. Sorry for the spoiler, but the fact she's a vegan legit has NOTHING to do with the plot. If she had been poisoning these men with a Beyond Meat burger then okay, I get it. I hate that I have to say this but I have NOTHING against vegans. I barely eat red meat myself, and chicken truly freaks me tf out. But I'm not a fan of using a novel to pontificate like a mofo just because you're a passionate vegan.
Then we have my least favorite kind of unreliable narrator – the liar for funsies. A "proper" unreliable narrator is one who truly believes what they're saying is reality due to a mental illness or maybe they're constantly coked out and don't know their ass from their mouth. Regardless, lying to the reader about events until the very end just for a lil twisty twist is lazy af.
And lastly, before I get into some spoilers, I'm not a fan of smut in my mystery/thrillers. Ain't no way you're afraid to have a picnic in a park but let some dude finger bang you outside of an axe throwing facility?????? Maybe I'm exposing myself as a "prude", but... are ya'll letting a mans pull your titties out and dj your nips on a regular Tuesday afternoon in a CCTV monitored elevator???
SPOILER TIME. SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM
Next we have the plant-based meat of this story: the revenge murders. Again, love the concept. And obviously for a story like this, yeeting of disbelief is required. But the murders were TOO laughably solvable. Homegirl was using Tinder to set up these men and you're telling me police didn't cotton on to that? Ok. At least try to do some basic forensic countermeasures like use a burner phone. Even Finlay Donovan was tighter than this.
Also, if she's all about striking down men, why didn't she go after her stalker ASAP?? The Creep was leaving graphic comments about using her blood as ky lube but she just let it rock until the very end??? This should've been target #1!!!!! Darwinism!!!
This book really went off da rails in the last 30%. First of all, Kitty has a metldown and is somehow found unresponsive by Charlie (who dumped her after a month or so) and then suddenly in the hospital he's like "btw I love you" and she says it back??? What? This doesn't strike you as WEIRD? And then at the end you find out he KNEW about allegations of sexual assaults against his charity's biggest donor James but he just went Helen Keller to it because of the $$$$ ... and you STAY with him???????? Again, hypocritical coming from the vegan who won't touch her inheritance because it's "blood money" but stays with a guy who enabled a r@pist. Bye.
Then you have the whole scene with Adam. What the FUCK? Talking about oh he's brilliant, he's creative, he's amazing blah blah blah like bro??? He was a major fucking douchebag who drained you emotionally despite slanging his D all around town. And to ask him "did you ever really love me" obviously tf not and WHY does it matter a handful of years later? I honestly couldn't care if my ex thought I was the second coming of Christ or the gatekeeper to Hell. This made zero sense and once again, had jack shit to do with the plot.
PROS AND CONS
Pros: fun premise, some of the humor was on point
Cons: Kitty's character was all over the place, swiss cheese ass plot, a lot of pandering, author was pontificating about veganism for no reason, last 30% really went sideways