This was a disappointing read

The premise was incredibly promising– a sweet looking woman turned serial killer with vile humour in diary format, but it felt short on many accounts

For me the biggest drawback was the inconsistency and mischaracterization of Rhiannon. Rhiannon might as well have been explicitly diagnosed with aspd (antisocial personality disorder or more commonly known sociopathy) and while certain behaviours of hers fit the clinical criteria I found it incredibly stereotypical at times. I expected some form of this going into the book (I mean it's a book centering a fucked up serial killer what did I expect her to have), but it still annoyed me at the lengths it reached

This is part of the general discussion around misrepresentation of sociopathy, but I found it extremely damaging that she was implied to have developed these afflictions after a traumatic event she had as a child, and that many of her emotions outside of plain sadism were minimal and rarely delved into. We spent pages hearing her complain and fantasize about gruesome scenarios, and when it came to the most pivotal parts of the plot she made emotional based decisions in the span of two seconds. I felt at times as if she were reduced to her implied diagnosis— we know little about her besides backstory and interest in the perverse, her personality and quirks (ex sylvanian families collector) were there to accentuate her weirdness more so than to structure her as a character that could feel real

Thats not to say I dislike Rhiannon as a character, she's funny and witty and kinda ridiculous in her ways, and while I appreciated her rawness and confidence a lot of her actions seemed shock valuey to me. Her language is often vile and violent, she doesn't shy away from sexual connotations and detailed descriptions, she appears more interested sexually in gruesome death than anything else and she only finds pleasure in the humiliation and manipulation of others

I don't like using this description lightly when it comes to this type of genre, but the over sexualization of her language and behavior reminded me of overly promiscuous 80s slasher movies. At times the book read like revenge porn, or a pg version of the terrifier movies, and while the topic of sexual arousal when it comes to murder (especially in serial killer cases) has a lot to offer in literally discussions, this appeared bleak and oversaturated. Rhiannon is messed up for the sake of being messed up, and when she appears to have a small change of heart towards the end it contradicts everything she's done up to that point so obviously it just felt wrong

Another problem I had while reading was how inconsistent she is. A major objection I had with the core theme is that Rhiannon actually doesn't appear like a sweetpea at all. We spend the entire book in her head, so as the reader we know all she is capable of, and the writing doesn't do enough to paint her as sympathetic and sweet and soft on the outside. There are small passages, and we do see her behavior worsening and roughing up as we reach the climax (which I appreciate, emotionally heightens the narrative), but it doesn't nearly have as much impact as it would were we able to picture her differently. Whenever she described exchanges aside from seduction or murder I was unable to picture her body language, stuck in between the image the premise made me believe she had, and the woman in front of me.
The other inconsistencies in her beliefs I can excuse more easily, she is incredibly arrogant and full of herself, so she could omit noticing the behaviors in herself that she judges others for, but unfortunately it didn't feel realistic enough

I liked the caricatures of the other characters, some more likeable than others, and I liked how despite Rhiannon's hate for everybody you could see through the cracks in her perception. They didn't display major complexities or character growth, and few played an important role in the narrative, but I believe the focus of the story is Rhiannon so I don't think it that important. On that note her emotional composition did change with the story, and I appreciated the highs and lows she displayed, it felt like the author knew her character well, but had to make last minute changes to fit the plot, resulting in the underexplained decisions she made

Now I heavily enjoyed the plot turns and twists in the book. I think the writing is immaculate and the author has a knack for storytelling; it's a thoroughly planned derailment of Rhiannon's psyche, and she constructs all the details meticulously until the end. There are gaps in our knowledge as readers since the start of the book, and information gets pierced together through hints in the diary entries, which I thought quite fitting and exciting for this format of book. It's not too demanding a task and it maintains interest in the narrative

However I did find huge amounts of information packed together often, like details about Rhiannon's friends, that were mostly there for comedic relief (useless in the grand scheme of things) and made reading exhausting. I will probably remember very little and it would have been far more enjoyable if I knew easily which characters hadn't been mentioned thoroughly to look for later in Rhiannon's stories for more clues, and which I had simply just forgotten or confused with others

Pace drags a bit, I think this could have been smaller, or could have benefited from more emotional commentary on certain occasions from Rhiannon to excuse the more boring chapters. I understand their purpose but they felt lackluster compared to other sections of the book. Lastly, a personal pet peeve of mine: I didn't enjoy the sections were Rhiannon was in the middle of writing and had to type smth like "MAJOR THINGS HAPPENING, WILL UPDATE LATER" to let us know of the time jump, or hinting at events with phrases like "my hands are shaking as I'm writing this". Would have been more suspenseful had she just dived in like in the start. I also couldn't figure out whether she was writing on an actual diary, or in her notes app (*edit: getting towards the end in the second book, she uses a note book which I think makes certain inconsistencies about the time each page was written more glaringly obvious)

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was immaculate, accents and voice changes on point, and there were several parts that made me laugh out loud. If it weren't for the open endings left in this book, I probably wouldn't pick up the next one, and while it wasn't horrible it could definitely use some improvements