Claire is a criminology student looking for someone exactly her type. She looks for him at night clubs (never at parties) and finally finds the Gentleman Killer after he dispatches three women in quick succession. Their honeymoon phase has her keeping him in her apartment, complete with a kill room, as she brings ideal victims to him. As time goes on, he grows frustrated at her rules and interference, rejecting her altogether. Claire is determined to ride it out, abandon him to completely break him, and come back to a perfect pet serial killer. Is he the one or does she have to go looking for another one?
My Pet Serial Killer is a strange novel completely from Claire's point of view. She's a graduate criminology student who's effortlessly successful. It leaves a lot of free time to dedicate to her true passion: grooming serial killers to be her perfect, obedient pet. She uses accessibility to her pet and his murders for sexual gratification and academic success. Unfortunately, her narrative serves as a barrier to the action. Claire herself is an interesting character and so is the Gentleman Killer, but the first half of the book dragged with extremely wordy stream of consciousness musings.
The second half of the book takes an unexpected turn when she tackles her doctoral thesis with a brand new killer for her to shape. That journey takes her all across the country visiting her incarcerated exes. She bizarrely grooms two TAs into acting as her clones as if they are all the same person. The previous storyline felt pretty fantastical with bodies moldering in her apartment for weeks without anyone complaining. They also abduct people in public and dispose of bodies with no problem. This second act turns up that fantasy into nearly telepathic communication with her new pet, more audacious kills, the weird TA's, and only a tiny threat of the real world that felt out of place after everything else. This section is much more action based and less steeped in Claire's inner monologue.
My Pet Serial Killer is experimental, ballsy, and lacking cohesion. I appreciated the effort of implicating the audience for observing and the flashes of a parody talk show that may or may not be part of Claire's imagination. However, it came off a little confused and didn't mesh with the rest of the story. The novel moves fast and I read it in a couple days. The overall concept is definitely unique, but would perhaps be more successful as a movie.
My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins
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