Gillian’s Reviews > All of Us Murderers > Status Update

Maybe I'm just not getting into the proper spirit, but this often feels more like the outline for a book than a fully fleshed out book. A lot of interesting elements are there but they don't gel for me into anything moving or special.

I also don't read much gothic literature so perhaps this is what it's like, but I'd expected more insanity. It's all somehow very tidy.

I guess getting annoyed at the protagonist for their naïveté is a time honored tradition of gothic novel readers.

So far it's good but not great. KJC is a romance novelist at heart I think, and the gothic mystery and the romance are balanced a bit awkwardly, neither developed enough to feel really moving or meaningful. At least so far. But it's still quite readable.

KJC is always eminently readable. That may sound like faint praise but I don't mean it that way; her books are excellent in many respects but readability is the one that matters most to me right now. I'm in the middle of three other books which are all excellent and I want to know what happens, but I find myself unable to focus for more than half a chapter. Self-aware gothic mystery to the rescue!