Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Normal by Graeme Cameron

23214378
2 Stars
 
“I was born and not made. A product of nature, and nurture be damned.”

In case you didn’t already know, here’s a pie chart that explains how normal I am . . .

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Now that we have that covered, let’s get down to bidness. I should title this week’s reviews “books I requested from NetGalley and was denied but was soooooo stoked about them I immediately got them from the library upon their release only to be extremely disappointed.” Someone cross-stitch that on a pillow for me.

Oh Normal, you had so much potential. A book about a serial killer written from the killer’s perspective??? That’s nearly a guaranteed win when it comes to a Kelly and Mitchell buddy read . . .

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YOU SHOULD BE!

Normal should have been a book that tore down allllllll the boundaries of things that are okay to write about. I should be writing a warning to all of you about all the triggers contained within its pages and saying things like “I completely understand anyone not feeling comfortable about reading this,” but I can’t because Normal was so . . . well, NORMAL. Yes, the MC was a serial killer, but he was the most one-dimensional serial killer in the history of serial killers. Since I’m a freak (see the graph above if you’ve already forgotten) I kinda love getting into these character’s brains and sometimes even fall in love with them feel a bit sorry for them. That’s kind of hard to do when you barely delve deeper than surface level and when you do you find out things like ROGER MOORE was always the dude’s favorite Bond. WTF? There’s only one Bond and everyone knows it . . .

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Add in to the mix having the serial killer’s murders all be of the fade-to-black style excluding the one kidnap victim/Stockholm Syndrome sufferer/freaking looney tune locked in a cage that I desperately kept waiting for something like this to happen to . . .

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and there just wasn’t much enjoyment to be had by either Mitchell or myself. Normal is a book for people who want to say they read something super edgy without actually reading something edgy at all. My recommendation? Skip this one and read You instead. Now there’s a weirdo I can rave about.

Thank you NetGalley for declining my request. Maybe one day I’ll realize you know me better than I know myself.

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