Content warnings: murder, sexual assault, stalking, teacher/student relationships, gaslighting
Summary [courtesy of Goodreads]: Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she’s even better at getting away with murder. Every year, she searches for the worst man at Gorman University and plots his well-deserved demise. Thanks to her meticulous planning, she’s avoided drawing attention to herself—but as she’s preparing for her biggest kill yet, the school starts probing into the growing body count on campus. Determined to keep her enemies close, Scarlett insinuates herself into the investigation and charms the woman in charge, Dr. Mina Pierce. Everything’s going according to her master plan… until she loses control with her latest victim, putting her secret life at risk of exposure. Meanwhile, Gorman student Carly Schiller is just trying to survive her freshman year. Finally free of her emotionally abusive father, all Carly wants is to focus on her studies and fade into the background. Her new roommate has other ideas. Allison Hadley is cool and confident—everything Carly wishes she could be—and the two girls quickly form an intense friendship. So when Allison is sexually assaulted at a party, Carly becomes obsessed with making the attacker pay… and turning her fantasies about revenge into a reality.
FUCK YES.
The minute I read the description for this book, I couldn’t request it from my library fast enough. And it is so damn good. It has so much: assertive bisexual representation, #yesall(cis)(white)men, productive rage, and empowered femme violence against predators. Also, it’s dual perspectives hit almost too close for comfort: young Carly is a mousy English major trying to escape the pull of her emotionally abusive father and her parents’ toxic relationship. Scarlett is a successful English professor (a Victorianist, though she teaches Shakespeare) who cannot deal with the toxicities of academia and the patriarchy more broadly. This is all freakishly similar to my own past (minus the murdering, of course, but also the academic all-star mentality).
Is this book perfect? Absolutely not. I could’ve done without Scarlett’s relationship with her grad. assistant, for one thing (gag), though it does play a functional role in later plot developments. And the book certainly could’ve been less white, as with most (white-authored) thrillers. And yes, it’s wildly unbelievable in both good and less good ways, but so are all thrillers.
I will admit I had to skim some sections, since it really lays into the gaslighting, predatory behavior, and outright sexual assault that many of the male characters enact on the women of the novel. It was hard to deal with, but knowing the outcome (I had spoiled myself on Goodreads around 10% of the way in) let me push forward to get to the good stuff.
SPOILER TERRITORY
I suppose my gushing about this book is spoiler enough, but this book delivers and truly does buck the trend of ‘correcting’ or punishing ‘bad,’ angry, violent women in fiction. I was expecting serial killer Scarlett to get caught and go to jail, or get killed by the end, which is why I couldn’t help but spoil myself on Goodreads. Reader, imagine my delight when I learned that while Scarlett DOES get caught by her crush and new hookup partner Mina, she does NOT die or go to jail, and in fact she GETS THE GIRL in the end. Mina and Scarlett’s relationship was so amazing, and while a lot of readers find it unrealistic and problematic, I personally swooned when Mina called Scarlett and her rapist-murdering ways “brilliant.” The final scene where Mina is lovingly braiding Scarlett’s hair so it doesn’t get sullied during her ‘hunt,’ while they review their new alibi and discuss their current academic research? Goals. (I mean, not really, since murder seems like it would take a heavy psychic toll, and also like a lot of work, and also I hate academic research. But this is as close to a self-insert wish-fulfillment takedown of the patriarchy that I’m ever gonna get, short of writing it myself [and even then, I definitely wouldn’t manage to come this close]).
And don’t get me started on the scene where Scarlett is willing to sacrifice her freedom and take the fall in order to protect sweet and badass undergrad Mikayla, who’s just killed her stalker/abuser to protect her mentors, only for brilliant Mina to intervene and devise a plan to keep them all out of prison. I may have cried?? I love this book…
Copaganda rating: neutral to anti-cop; while a woman cop is briefly skeptical of Scarlett’s innocent pose, overall the cops are ineffectual and don’t impede her in the end