Monday, May 12, 2014

Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell

Rule One—Nothing is right, nothing is wrong.
Rule Two—Be careful.
Rule Three—Fight using your legs whenever possible, because they’re the strongest part of your body. Your arms are the weakest.
Rule Four—Hit to kill. The first blow should be the last, if at all possible.
Rule Five—The letters are the law.

Kit takes her role as London’s notorious “Perfect Killer” seriously. The letters and cash that come to her via a secret mailbox are not a game; choosing who to kill is not an impulse decision. Every letter she receives begins with “Dear Killer,” and every time Kit murders, she leaves a letter with the dead body. Her moral nihilism and thus her murders are a way of life—the only way of life she has ever known.

But when a letter appears in the mailbox that will have the power to topple Kit’s convictions as perfectly as she commits her murders, she must make a decision: follow the only rules she has ever known, or challenge Rule One, and go from there.

Katherine Ewell’s Dear Killer is a sinister psychological thriller that explores the thin line between good and evil, and the messiness of that inevitable moment when life contradicts everything you believe.



The author wrote this book when she was 17 years old. I had such high hopes for this story as the premise sounded really interesting. The killer is a 17 year old student who decides who she is going to kill based on letters lefts in a public bathroom. It actually started out really good. Unfortunately, although there were some parts in the beginning where I was “wow, this was written by a 17 year old”, there were far more parts where I was “yeah, it’s written by a 17 year old”. The story is uneven and told in a ‘spoken word’/staccato form and uses to many adjectives so it comes across as not very insightful. 

Although the killer explains her reasons for killing, I was never able to care enough for her or the people she chose to kill. I do hope the author continues to hone her storytelling skills as I believe she does have the potential needed to write interesting stories.     



*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  Roberta

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The old grey donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and sometimes he thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch as which?" and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about.

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