Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell | Review

Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell | ReviewDear Killer by Katherine Ewell
Published by Harper Teen on April 1, 2014
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 368
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss, Publisher
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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 KillerTh” 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.

Dear Killer is really hard for me to review. On one hand, I enjoyed it. On the other, there were things about it that really let me down. Dear Killer really is one book that is perfectly in the middle for me.

The concept for Dear Killer is what really caught my attention and it’s the one thing I really enjoyed about it. Reading about a teenage serial killer is something I can honestly say I’ve never done. It was fascinating to be inside Kit’s head. She didn’t see anything right or wrong about what she was doing. The concept of moral nihilism was something I hadn’t heard of before reading Dear Killer. Katherine Ewell went in depth with the concept and it really did leave me thinking.

However, I had some problems with Dear Killer. I’ll start with my main problem which was Kit herself. I did not like her at all. She was cocky and full of herself. Her nickname with the media was The Perfect Killer and that’s exactly how she saw herself. She considered herself untouchable and she let it go to her head. I wanted to slap some sense into her.

Another issue I had was with the whole killings. Maybe I’ve read too many adult murder mysteries and maybe it’s partly because I have two former police officers for parents but I really didn’t see how any of this could work. First off, Kit describes herself as a skinny, relatively average height teenage girl. How in the world would it be possible for her to overtake men much larger than her and much stronger? I don’t care how much training you’ve had, it just doesn’t work that way. Also, she was way too cocky with her killings. She would kill people right out in the open. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she was killing 3 to 4 people a month. That just does not work. With the police looking as hard as they were, someone would have caught her.

One good thing about Dear Killer was the relationship Kit had with her mom. Admittedly, it was based on murder but still, it was good. Kit and her mom had a close relationship. They told each other everything. Kit learned everything she knew about murder from her mom. She knew that she could always go to her with any problems or complications. It’s definitely not your typical mother/daughter relationship but it worked for them.

There was also one other thing about Dear Killer that I both liked and didn’t like; the writing. Katherine Ewell’s writing style is very distinct and I enjoyed it. It’s detailed and thorough and I really felt like I could picture everything as Kit was seeing it. The only problem was that it really slowed down the story. What I felt should have been a fast-paced book ended up taking me much longer to get through.Overall, Dear Killer will greatly appeal to some, just not to me. I enjoyed it and I would recommend it but it won’t be on my favorites list.

What others are saying about Dear Killer:

The (YA) Bookcase’s review: “The story of a teenage serial assassin is violent and contains some slightly graphic material; however, it does a good job of engaging the reader to ask what is moral or ethical.”

The Phantom Paragrapher’s review: “I leave with these parting words that if you are a fan of serial killers – the people themselves, the person behind the mask and wanting a book told from the killer’s POV then Katherine Ewell’s book “Dear Killer” is the story for you.”

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7 comments

  1. I totally agree with what you said about Kit, she felt like she was untouchable and that made her cocky and very hard to like. I was also hoping she would back down and not do the thing she was planning on Christmas but she went through with it anyway and that really bothered me. I did enjoy Ewell’s writing, it’s very unique. Great review!

  2. Huh. This is a very interesting premise for a book…very original. Even though you didn’t give it the greatest rating, I might have to read it just because of that.

  3. This does sound like the kind of read that people will love and buy into, or see all the implausibilities in it, especially for readers who have a background or exposure to law enforcement like you do.

    What seems really important is the moral question here, and whether she does what she does out of a sense of entitlement (taking hits on evil people, like Dexter does on TV) or if it’s just a philosophy of hers.

    It doesn’t help when you don’t like the main character, but at least you enjoyed parts of it!

    I wonder if the author researched teen serial killers and their motives in order to write this.

    Lovely review 🙂