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Kill for Love
The boys on the row are only after one thing, but that bullshit’s for pledges. Tiffany’s on the hunt for something more.
Kill for Love is a searing satirical thriller about Tiffany, a privileged Los Angeles sorority sister who is struggling to keep her sadistic impulses—and haunting nightmares of fire and destruction—at bay. After a frat party hookup devolves into a bloody, fatal affair, Tiffany realizes something within her has the insatiable desire to kill attractive young men.
As Tiffany’s bloodlust deepens and the bodies pile up, she must contend with mounting legal scrutiny, social media-fueled competing murders, and her growing relationship with Weston, who she thinks could be the perfect boyfriend. A female-driven, modern-day American Psycho, Kill for Love exposes modern toxic plasticity with dark comedy and propulsive plot.
“In her clear and visceral sentences that evoke a world both like and unlike our own, Picklesimer places you completely in the narrator’s haunting, singular journey.” —Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin
Kill for Love is a searing satirical thriller about Tiffany, a privileged Los Angeles sorority sister who is struggling to keep her sadistic impulses—and haunting nightmares of fire and destruction—at bay. After a frat party hookup devolves into a bloody, fatal affair, Tiffany realizes something within her has the insatiable desire to kill attractive young men.
As Tiffany’s bloodlust deepens and the bodies pile up, she must contend with mounting legal scrutiny, social media-fueled competing murders, and her growing relationship with Weston, who she thinks could be the perfect boyfriend. A female-driven, modern-day American Psycho, Kill for Love exposes modern toxic plasticity with dark comedy and propulsive plot.
“In her clear and visceral sentences that evoke a world both like and unlike our own, Picklesimer places you completely in the narrator’s haunting, singular journey.” —Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin
279 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 5, 2023
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December 14, 2023
The bloody anti-girlboss sorority sister serial killer satire novel I never knew I needed
October 5, 2023
A perfectly short thriller to make you consider...'what if?' When a sorority girl who seems to have it all goes on a ki!ling rampage... what does it take to make a person truly content?
THOUGHTS:
When I started reading this.. I didn't expect to feel a connection to the main character. After all... I'm not a blonde, super skinny - socialite/sorority girl..? Picklesimer's writing, though? Excellent. We're immediately sunk into the deep recesses of a truly troubled mind with all of its disillusionment and diss-attachment to the world around them.
A major theme I noticed developing throughout 'Ki!l For Love' was a lack of contentment. It reminds me of a certain group of wealthy men who were lost to the sea because they decided to play chicken with nature in a submarine recently? What does one need to **feel** something when you have everything? What does it take to get a rush? When you literally have the world at your fingertips and beauty is attainable with every swipe of your black card... what does it take for you to feel whole and content?
- Is the rush of ki!ling another human being. That's what our main femme fatale was after... but what got her to that point? At what point do intrusive thoughts become something you must act on? Must you have a predisposition for evil and violence? (Our main character certainly did!) But does that little slice of evil exist in us all? (People have committed atrocious acts for far less than what she did!)
It's rare for women to be serial ki!lers. When they do.. do we judge them differently than men? Or are they all still judged with the same level of abhorrence? I've read a lot of books on multiple h0micices recently... and I personally feel the same revulsion toward them all. BUT there are def moments that I almost feel pity for our FMC... she's clearly clinically/mentally unwell... but at what point could she have been saved? Was she always doomed to become a monster?
NOTES:
- 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 Sexual but not romantic
- CWs: Graphic
**Thank you to my friends at The Unnamed Press for the advanced reader copy. I received this book for free, but all thoughts are my own. – SLR 🖤
Find Me On Instagram 🦋 || More Bookish Thoughts & Reviews Here 🖤
THOUGHTS:
When I started reading this.. I didn't expect to feel a connection to the main character. After all... I'm not a blonde, super skinny - socialite/sorority girl..? Picklesimer's writing, though? Excellent. We're immediately sunk into the deep recesses of a truly troubled mind with all of its disillusionment and diss-attachment to the world around them.
A major theme I noticed developing throughout 'Ki!l For Love' was a lack of contentment. It reminds me of a certain group of wealthy men who were lost to the sea because they decided to play chicken with nature in a submarine recently? What does one need to **feel** something when you have everything? What does it take to get a rush? When you literally have the world at your fingertips and beauty is attainable with every swipe of your black card... what does it take for you to feel whole and content?
- Is the rush of ki!ling another human being. That's what our main femme fatale was after... but what got her to that point? At what point do intrusive thoughts become something you must act on? Must you have a predisposition for evil and violence? (Our main character certainly did!) But does that little slice of evil exist in us all? (People have committed atrocious acts for far less than what she did!)
It's rare for women to be serial ki!lers. When they do.. do we judge them differently than men? Or are they all still judged with the same level of abhorrence? I've read a lot of books on multiple h0micices recently... and I personally feel the same revulsion toward them all. BUT there are def moments that I almost feel pity for our FMC... she's clearly clinically/mentally unwell... but at what point could she have been saved? Was she always doomed to become a monster?
NOTES:
- 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 Sexual but not romantic
- CWs: Graphic
**Thank you to my friends at The Unnamed Press for the advanced reader copy. I received this book for free, but all thoughts are my own. – SLR 🖤
Find Me On Instagram 🦋 || More Bookish Thoughts & Reviews Here 🖤
September 29, 2023
The Publisher Says: The boys on the row are only after one thing, but that bullshit’s for pledges. Tiffany’s on the hunt for something more.
Kill for Love is a searing satirical thriller about Tiffany, a privileged Los Angeles sorority sister who is struggling to keep her sadistic impulses—and haunting nightmares of fire and destruction—at bay. After a frat party hookup devolves into a bloody, fatal affair, Tiffany realizes something within her has awoken: the insatiable desire to kill attractive young men.
As Tiffany’s bloodlust deepens and the bodies pile up, she must contend with mounting legal scrutiny, social media-fueled competing murders, and her growing relationship with Weston, who she thinks could be the perfect boyfriend. A female-driven, modern-day American Psycho, Kill for Love exposes modern toxic plasticity with dark comedy and propulsive plot.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: If you have a trigger, this book will trip it. Shop elsewhere.
Is the best way to satirize something to stand it on its head, replicating beat-for-beat its abuses on those usually perpetrating them?
By my definition of "best," this time the answer's yes. Like the 2019 delight that was Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister, the Serial Killer, this book posits a vicious and cruel woman enacting sexual violence on the men...pretty, vapid young men in this case...who irritate her. We're in Tiffany's head this time, unlike Braithwaite's story of an appalled sister's responses to the aftermath of violence. It's a much more awful place to be. Not that she's unjusified in targeting her victims, you understand. It's just the glorious release and the bloody reveling in her newfound freedom to be the perpetrator, not the victim, of violence is...a bit unpleasant. A lot like the experience of reading the very accurate publisher's comp title American Psycho is. Being inside an unhinged person's head as they perpetrate unspeakable sexualized violence for their own gratification is very, very unsettling...to me at least. Thank goodness it is, or I'd be worried about myself.
What Author Picklesimer does that wasn't done in American Psycho is leave her character on the surfaces of things, people, thoughts...she has, and sees, and needs no depth in, to, of anything. Her world is flat and glossy with a few stark shadows and fewer ideas. Patrick Bateman reveled in what he was doing but had pseudoprofound thoughts about it. Tiffany is utterly without nuance. It works much better than some out-of-character philosophizing would have done to poke a satirical finger in the chest of the rampant blatant ever-uglier misogyny in the use of sexualized violence against women as entertainment. Women are victims and foils, you say? asks Author Picklesimer. What drove this man to do all these awful things to women, as though that was the important part because, one is led to understand, *HE* is then the main character, not his victim.
Her response to this sexist, misogynistic bullshit is to give the world Tiffany, pretty, shallow, privileged Tiffany. She revels in her bloody dispatchings of men because it feels good...no woman on a mission, no abused-become-abuser mealymouthing. She gets off on it.
It's probably more unsettling to me that she finds Weston so lovable than that she commits the awful acts she does. The randomness of her choice, the indistinguishability of Weston from the victims, is so completely arbitrary that it gives me the heebie-jeebies when I contemplate how much of my own continued existence is down to not meeting a Tiffany when their bloodlust was up.
There were problems in the read for me. One was Tiffany's peculiarly empathetic response to her roommate, whom she professes to dislike, experiencing rape. Why would Tiffany care? She's got no empathy in her or the oceans of awfulness wouldn't happen. I wasn't entirely sure that California, where we set our scene, was meant to be satirical or reportorial. Its wasteland-of-violence presentation was deadpan enough that it didn't read as exaggerated for effect to me. That meant I was left wondering how this has only now created a Tiffany...and how it is that Authority in such a hellscape overlooked her as a potential perpetrator without her using a whole lot of effort to mislead them. I suppose that's a commentary on sexism's immensely stupidifying effect on men.
Even Tiffany has a family, though you'd barely know it. Her sister is window-dressed into one scene I can remember, which means there was either no need for her at all or there's a missed opportunity here. Weston's bestie, Dean, had a tiny role that I'd've liked more of, but the bit he was in certainly ramped up the tension so read that as a bleat of dissatisfaction not a criticism.
I've got this to say about the read: It suited me down to the ground for what I wanted it to do. It entertained me as I thought of the thousands of hours of girls (term used advisedly) breasting boobily across stage, page, and screen to titillate with their sexuality before being punished in violent awful ways for it.
How's it feel when the tables are turned, gents?
Kill for Love is a searing satirical thriller about Tiffany, a privileged Los Angeles sorority sister who is struggling to keep her sadistic impulses—and haunting nightmares of fire and destruction—at bay. After a frat party hookup devolves into a bloody, fatal affair, Tiffany realizes something within her has awoken: the insatiable desire to kill attractive young men.
As Tiffany’s bloodlust deepens and the bodies pile up, she must contend with mounting legal scrutiny, social media-fueled competing murders, and her growing relationship with Weston, who she thinks could be the perfect boyfriend. A female-driven, modern-day American Psycho, Kill for Love exposes modern toxic plasticity with dark comedy and propulsive plot.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: If you have a trigger, this book will trip it. Shop elsewhere.
Is the best way to satirize something to stand it on its head, replicating beat-for-beat its abuses on those usually perpetrating them?
By my definition of "best," this time the answer's yes. Like the 2019 delight that was Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister, the Serial Killer, this book posits a vicious and cruel woman enacting sexual violence on the men...pretty, vapid young men in this case...who irritate her. We're in Tiffany's head this time, unlike Braithwaite's story of an appalled sister's responses to the aftermath of violence. It's a much more awful place to be. Not that she's unjusified in targeting her victims, you understand. It's just the glorious release and the bloody reveling in her newfound freedom to be the perpetrator, not the victim, of violence is...a bit unpleasant. A lot like the experience of reading the very accurate publisher's comp title American Psycho is. Being inside an unhinged person's head as they perpetrate unspeakable sexualized violence for their own gratification is very, very unsettling...to me at least. Thank goodness it is, or I'd be worried about myself.
What Author Picklesimer does that wasn't done in American Psycho is leave her character on the surfaces of things, people, thoughts...she has, and sees, and needs no depth in, to, of anything. Her world is flat and glossy with a few stark shadows and fewer ideas. Patrick Bateman reveled in what he was doing but had pseudoprofound thoughts about it. Tiffany is utterly without nuance. It works much better than some out-of-character philosophizing would have done to poke a satirical finger in the chest of the rampant blatant ever-uglier misogyny in the use of sexualized violence against women as entertainment. Women are victims and foils, you say? asks Author Picklesimer. What drove this man to do all these awful things to women, as though that was the important part because, one is led to understand, *HE* is then the main character, not his victim.
Her response to this sexist, misogynistic bullshit is to give the world Tiffany, pretty, shallow, privileged Tiffany. She revels in her bloody dispatchings of men because it feels good...no woman on a mission, no abused-become-abuser mealymouthing. She gets off on it.
It's probably more unsettling to me that she finds Weston so lovable than that she commits the awful acts she does. The randomness of her choice, the indistinguishability of Weston from the victims, is so completely arbitrary that it gives me the heebie-jeebies when I contemplate how much of my own continued existence is down to not meeting a Tiffany when their bloodlust was up.
There were problems in the read for me. One was Tiffany's peculiarly empathetic response to her roommate, whom she professes to dislike, experiencing rape. Why would Tiffany care? She's got no empathy in her or the oceans of awfulness wouldn't happen. I wasn't entirely sure that California, where we set our scene, was meant to be satirical or reportorial. Its wasteland-of-violence presentation was deadpan enough that it didn't read as exaggerated for effect to me. That meant I was left wondering how this has only now created a Tiffany...and how it is that Authority in such a hellscape overlooked her as a potential perpetrator without her using a whole lot of effort to mislead them. I suppose that's a commentary on sexism's immensely stupidifying effect on men.
Even Tiffany has a family, though you'd barely know it. Her sister is window-dressed into one scene I can remember, which means there was either no need for her at all or there's a missed opportunity here. Weston's bestie, Dean, had a tiny role that I'd've liked more of, but the bit he was in certainly ramped up the tension so read that as a bleat of dissatisfaction not a criticism.
I've got this to say about the read: It suited me down to the ground for what I wanted it to do. It entertained me as I thought of the thousands of hours of girls (term used advisedly) breasting boobily across stage, page, and screen to titillate with their sexuality before being punished in violent awful ways for it.
How's it feel when the tables are turned, gents?
December 12, 2023
Instagram || Threads || Facebook || Amazon || TikTok
DNF @ 52%
I really tried to stick with this one because the writing style is very good. This is basically a gender-swapped AMERICAN PSYCHO, with a shallow and sociopathic sorority girl as the killer. One day, she decides that she just really wants to kill the guys in her life, and embarks upon a stabby, slashy spree.
One thing I didn't see anyone talking about is that the heroine has an ED, and calorie restriction and purging feature pretty heavily as themes in this book. I feel this is supposed to be juxtaposed against her feral appetite for killing and savagery, as well as the consumerist LA culture she lives in. If you're reading deeply into this book, I think you could say that Tiffany is a violent rebellion against the patriarchy and the societal standards that said patriarchy has imposed upon women.
I probably would have liked this more if I hadn't read so many other female serial killer-fronted books that took this concept and ran with it slightly better. Would recommend this to people who enjoyed books such as SWEETPEA, HOW TO KILL MEN AND GET AWAY WITH IT, and BOY PARTS.
2 stars
October 17, 2023
Wowzah!! This little book packed quite the punch!!
The boys on the row better watch out, there's a killer on the prowl, and she's craving a fix!!
Lately, I've picked up on the trend in more and more badass female lead antagonists in my thrillers, and Picklesimer's debut, Kill for Love, was not exception. You could argue that this crazy, pacey read is the feminist's American Psycho, and it was a total blast!!
Tiffany is a spoiled-rotten, self-obsessed, sociopathic sorority sister, and she is anything but sorry 'bout it!! Quickly after this novel begins, Tiffany is out with her Greek boy-toy, and on a whim decides she's had enough of him and after satiating herself of him physically, she brutally slashes him to pieces. This is the first time she's acted out on the increasing urge to kill, and now that she has, there's no going back! If the opening few pages of this novel doesn't catch your attention, then I don't know what will - after reading the first few chapters I was totally hooked. I normally hate to say I loved the bad guy (or girl), but in this novel I totally did, and I couldn't wait to read what Tiffany did next as she prowled the Los Angeles streets night after night, hunting for her next kill.
Was there much more to this one than one gratuitously entertaining murder after the next? Not really, but the outrageousness of Tiffany as a character was enough to keep me engaged throughout, and upon finishing this one I found myself wanting more! The execution of the fairly simplistic story was perfection! That being said, I certainly hope there is a continuation to Tiffany, and in fact, there were enough storylines that were left open-ended to get me thinking there might just be more to our new favorite bad girl's story!
I've never been a fan of the Greek scene, and in fact loathed it whilst at University, so this satire really hit my spot, but if you're just in the mood for something entertaining and not too deep for your Spooktober reading, this debut is just the delectable morsel to sink your teeth into!
The boys on the row better watch out, there's a killer on the prowl, and she's craving a fix!!
Lately, I've picked up on the trend in more and more badass female lead antagonists in my thrillers, and Picklesimer's debut, Kill for Love, was not exception. You could argue that this crazy, pacey read is the feminist's American Psycho, and it was a total blast!!
Tiffany is a spoiled-rotten, self-obsessed, sociopathic sorority sister, and she is anything but sorry 'bout it!! Quickly after this novel begins, Tiffany is out with her Greek boy-toy, and on a whim decides she's had enough of him and after satiating herself of him physically, she brutally slashes him to pieces. This is the first time she's acted out on the increasing urge to kill, and now that she has, there's no going back! If the opening few pages of this novel doesn't catch your attention, then I don't know what will - after reading the first few chapters I was totally hooked. I normally hate to say I loved the bad guy (or girl), but in this novel I totally did, and I couldn't wait to read what Tiffany did next as she prowled the Los Angeles streets night after night, hunting for her next kill.
Was there much more to this one than one gratuitously entertaining murder after the next? Not really, but the outrageousness of Tiffany as a character was enough to keep me engaged throughout, and upon finishing this one I found myself wanting more! The execution of the fairly simplistic story was perfection! That being said, I certainly hope there is a continuation to Tiffany, and in fact, there were enough storylines that were left open-ended to get me thinking there might just be more to our new favorite bad girl's story!
I've never been a fan of the Greek scene, and in fact loathed it whilst at University, so this satire really hit my spot, but if you're just in the mood for something entertaining and not too deep for your Spooktober reading, this debut is just the delectable morsel to sink your teeth into!
September 18, 2023
Laura Picklesimer's debut novel, KILL FOR LOVE, is legitimately SO. MUCH. FUN. This feminist, satirical take on American Psycho had me devouring the pages and I read this book in one sitting.
The story is focused on Los Angeles sorority sister, Tiffany, and her struggle to keep her sadistic impulses at bay while in college. Tiffany has nightmares of fire and destruction, but instead of them being nightmares, they are desires. Tiffany ends up giving into her impulses after a fraternity party hook up goes awry and it ends up in murder. Tiffany has awakened the beast she kept at bay her entire life. As Tiffany's bloodlust grows stronger and stronger, she also struggles to balance out her new relationship with her boyfriend Weston. Tiffany is determined to get what she wants, by any means necessary.
This book is camp. This book is satire. This book is wild. This book is sexy. THIS BOOK IS FUN! I had such a blast reading this book and it's very quick to get through. I definitely think readers will have a blast seeing the world through Tiffany's distorted, yet also lovable(?) eyes. The cover immediately drawn me in and it's truly calling for the gays to read. KILL FOR LOVE is a great read for those who liked American Psycho or Stone Cold Fox. Highly recommend!
The story is focused on Los Angeles sorority sister, Tiffany, and her struggle to keep her sadistic impulses at bay while in college. Tiffany has nightmares of fire and destruction, but instead of them being nightmares, they are desires. Tiffany ends up giving into her impulses after a fraternity party hook up goes awry and it ends up in murder. Tiffany has awakened the beast she kept at bay her entire life. As Tiffany's bloodlust grows stronger and stronger, she also struggles to balance out her new relationship with her boyfriend Weston. Tiffany is determined to get what she wants, by any means necessary.
This book is camp. This book is satire. This book is wild. This book is sexy. THIS BOOK IS FUN! I had such a blast reading this book and it's very quick to get through. I definitely think readers will have a blast seeing the world through Tiffany's distorted, yet also lovable(?) eyes. The cover immediately drawn me in and it's truly calling for the gays to read. KILL FOR LOVE is a great read for those who liked American Psycho or Stone Cold Fox. Highly recommend!
September 16, 2023
like A Certain Hunger, but even more fucked up
January 10, 2024
exactly the "good for her" story i've been craving for months. i just wish it weren't a sorority girl because she was annoying af for a lot of the book, but the unhinged feminine rage made up for it.
September 28, 2023
insane bonkers book. bloody and campy and entertaining. it was fun to read from the perspective of a character who is pretty much all surface — which may seem contradictory, given my usual appreciation of a complex, nuanced protagonist. however, for this novel, i felt that the shallowness and unlikeability of tiffany made sense and enhanced the book's atmosphere and satirical themes. overall, quite engaging
October 8, 2023
American Psycho where Bateman is a Delta Gamma who targets men
September 26, 2023
not all heroes wear capes. sometimes they’re just deranged insecure narcissists who can’t stand men thinking they’re worth anything and therefore must take things into their own hands.
April 9, 2024
3.5 rounded up because I really liked this one you know. This 5th year Delta Gamma sorority girl becomes bewitched with the power of killing men. Until she meets this one guy she actually kinda likes and has to balance her evil with some romance.
I really don’t have much to say about this one. It’s just crazy bingeable… an all around good time. Our main character often feels like a caricature whose one quirk is her murderous tendencies, but I didn’t really mind that. Actually, most of the characters leaned into caricatures of themselves… I think that was solely because of the short length of the book. There was probably depth to them, but that depth was something our narrator didn’t really care to disclose… if that makes sense? What I’m trying to say is that this book is story driven. Lol…that took me a while to get there.
There was one Easter egg that could have been explored more deeply… I won’t let on if any of you want to read. It was dropped in the first 100 pages and the reveal was pretty unsatisfying. Once again, I didn’t really care. This book was a comfort read for a psychopath. I guess I could see the societal message that was teased out throughout the novel but it was nowhere near the highlight of the book. The true highlight was the romp of it all. I just had a great time.
I really don’t have much to say about this one. It’s just crazy bingeable… an all around good time. Our main character often feels like a caricature whose one quirk is her murderous tendencies, but I didn’t really mind that. Actually, most of the characters leaned into caricatures of themselves… I think that was solely because of the short length of the book. There was probably depth to them, but that depth was something our narrator didn’t really care to disclose… if that makes sense? What I’m trying to say is that this book is story driven. Lol…that took me a while to get there.
There was one Easter egg that could have been explored more deeply… I won’t let on if any of you want to read. It was dropped in the first 100 pages and the reveal was pretty unsatisfying. Once again, I didn’t really care. This book was a comfort read for a psychopath. I guess I could see the societal message that was teased out throughout the novel but it was nowhere near the highlight of the book. The true highlight was the romp of it all. I just had a great time.
September 12, 2023
jennifer's body is def a good comp, but i feel like i hated the girl hate PLUS there was a scene of animal death/abuse and implied rape/sexual assault. beware.
February 17, 2024
Heading into Valentine’s Day with some delicious literary horror. ❤️❤️🔪❤️❤️
If you read Maeve Fly last year and loved it, trust that this is even better. Kill For Love is basically American Psycho but instead of a business bro it’s a sorority girl who just wants the world to perceive her in the most perfect, superficial way—oh, and she loves killing men. She’s a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath and kills just because she loves it. 💅💅
There is something so freeing about a woman being allowed to be evil without needing a tragic back story—without being a victim first. If men like Patrick Bateman can do it, why can’t hot, shallow sorority girls named Tiffany?
I want more people to read this book!
If you read Maeve Fly last year and loved it, trust that this is even better. Kill For Love is basically American Psycho but instead of a business bro it’s a sorority girl who just wants the world to perceive her in the most perfect, superficial way—oh, and she loves killing men. She’s a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath and kills just because she loves it. 💅💅
There is something so freeing about a woman being allowed to be evil without needing a tragic back story—without being a victim first. If men like Patrick Bateman can do it, why can’t hot, shallow sorority girls named Tiffany?
I want more people to read this book!
September 11, 2023
This is the absolute wildest ride. Tiffany is completely cracked and I LOVE HER. When you start this book and think, "what is she talking about, this girl is horrible?" — just wait it out. I promise you things pick up and go completely off the rails. This book is fully satirical, she's supposed to be horrible and you're supposed to love to hate her. Oddly enough, Tiffany almost becomes maybe sort of a little bit humanized by the end? Maybe. Get back to me with your thoughts.
But please, read this if you:
🔪 get amped up by slasher horror fiction
🛍️ hate everything about the spoiled L.A. lifestyle
🩸 don't mind a hefty dose of gore in your books
Kill For Love reminded me a bit of another recent horror novel, so definitely check this one out if you read and loved Maeve Fly by CJ Leede! Humongous thank you to @booksparks for gifting me my own gorgeous copy (the cover alone made me NEED it) 🫶
But please, read this if you:
🔪 get amped up by slasher horror fiction
🛍️ hate everything about the spoiled L.A. lifestyle
🩸 don't mind a hefty dose of gore in your books
Kill For Love reminded me a bit of another recent horror novel, so definitely check this one out if you read and loved Maeve Fly by CJ Leede! Humongous thank you to @booksparks for gifting me my own gorgeous copy (the cover alone made me NEED it) 🫶
Read
March 18, 2024A gloriously gory mean-spirited serial killer novel peppered with snark and social commentary. Quite enjoyable.
April 15, 2024
The female version of Patrick Bateman meets Scream Queens with a sprinkle of Jennifer's Body?...cue the scene: "Jennifer, you're killing people!" "Noooo I'm killing boys!" The main character is so dissatisfied and bored in her everyday life that once she starts on this rampage of slayings, á la Jack the Ripper style, her self-absorbed narcissism doesn't allow her to stop, pushing the boundaries further and further with each kill. This was a fast-paced, easy-to-read thriller that I enjoyed til the last drop!
October 3, 2023
I was very disturbed by this entire book and feel like I missed the point of the entire thing and maybe that’s bc I normally don’t read books like this. I personally thought it was way too violent and found Tiffany to be extremely unlikable. I guess idk if it was really a bad book objectively because it’s just SO not something I normally would read or be interested in. Maybe if you like very gory things, this book is for you.
June 9, 2024
This is basically what the pitch is: American Psycho but make it a sorority girl. It's a worthy premise and opens up a lot of room to explore, but I wish it had gone farther, pushed more boundaries. I'm sure it will read as bold and brash to many readers, but while I liked it I wanted something more below the surface that I never really got.
February 17, 2024
Wow okay. That was fun and stressful
October 19, 2023
took me a while to get around to thinking through this one, and ultimately i don't have much to say. it felt pretty weak and unskilled to me, and like it was trying extremely hard to draw explicit american psycho references without a great understanding of that actual text, like it watched the movie and said oh let me try. so it wound up just kind of flailing around its inspirations, didn't know itself well enough. the gesture towards the rape-revenge trope irked me deeply. i'm sorry but it was maybe just really not well written..........................
December 19, 2023
I guess I just love books about sick freak-weirdos. This was a ton of gross, compelling fun. I wish the ending had slowed down a bit more to explore the stuff with her dad, but whatever. Still a great time.
4.5/5
4.5/5
June 13, 2024
I just love it when women 💞kill💞
I can see this one being a 5 star favorite 🥳 can’t wait to get my hands on it!
Review after I read the book:
Not what I expected at all. I knew she will kill men which I was more than happy to be on board with but that was all I got right before I started this book.
The book is great, amazing, fun, I couldn’t stop reading it but the end left me a little meh. This is still a 4.5 read but the ending got the .5.
The book is a character dive into her life, desires, and what she thinks. It was hard sometimes to read her thoughts but it made sense. I really didn’t get the subtleties about her dad until the end.
Tiffany is a beautiful girl, new to murder, we take a ride in her mind during each event and nothing gets left out, we are there for everything. She is selfish, narcissistic, mean with everyone she doesn’t want to sleep with or get something from, not a girls girl. It was hard to read how she didn’t care to inform 3 girls about Malcom, it was selfish asf. She wants to be the best at everything, have the most beautiful boyfriend, body, clothes, instagram feed. The weight of women is a big part of the book, she is obsessed with her body, her abs, she has a 2h workout routing, who can workout for 2 fucking hours?!
What I didn’t like about the book: it didn’t feel like the end she deserved. I actually thought she will get killed by the man she tried the most to keep in her life, even killer for, it would have been a better ending for me. I understand the need to leave it like this, but I still thought we will have another ending. I think maybe the ending was left open in order to be able to return to this world which would be interesting to read more about Tiffany, what did she do after everything happened, but I doubt we will get another book.
The kills: most of them were random and you didn’t actually cared about the characters but 2 deaths were the best in different ways Dean and Malcom. I was soooo happy to finally see she will kill Malcom, I actually thought she wont do it but in the end it was a good scene. Dean’s death on the other hand, I was hurt and not expecting at all. He was the only friend Weston had and cared about and it was gut wrenching to read his death.
I can see this one being a 5 star favorite 🥳 can’t wait to get my hands on it!
Review after I read the book:
Not what I expected at all. I knew she will kill men which I was more than happy to be on board with but that was all I got right before I started this book.
The book is great, amazing, fun, I couldn’t stop reading it but the end left me a little meh. This is still a 4.5 read but the ending got the .5.
The book is a character dive into her life, desires, and what she thinks. It was hard sometimes to read her thoughts but it made sense. I really didn’t get the subtleties about her dad until the end.
Tiffany is a beautiful girl, new to murder, we take a ride in her mind during each event and nothing gets left out, we are there for everything. She is selfish, narcissistic, mean with everyone she doesn’t want to sleep with or get something from, not a girls girl. It was hard to read how she didn’t care to inform 3 girls about Malcom, it was selfish asf. She wants to be the best at everything, have the most beautiful boyfriend, body, clothes, instagram feed. The weight of women is a big part of the book, she is obsessed with her body, her abs, she has a 2h workout routing, who can workout for 2 fucking hours?!
What I didn’t like about the book: it didn’t feel like the end she deserved. I actually thought she will get killed by the man she tried the most to keep in her life, even killer for, it would have been a better ending for me. I understand the need to leave it like this, but I still thought we will have another ending. I think maybe the ending was left open in order to be able to return to this world which would be interesting to read more about Tiffany, what did she do after everything happened, but I doubt we will get another book.
The kills: most of them were random and you didn’t actually cared about the characters but 2 deaths were the best in different ways Dean and Malcom. I was soooo happy to finally see she will kill Malcom, I actually thought she wont do it but in the end it was a good scene. Dean’s death on the other hand, I was hurt and not expecting at all. He was the only friend Weston had and cared about and it was gut wrenching to read his death.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 12, 2024
AUDREY'S ONE-SENTENCE BOOK REVIEWS
I support women's wrongs, but it feels unjustified to call this a "satire" of "modern toxic plasticity" when the vengeful heroine is a bored, rich, blonde socialite who is obsessed with maintaining patriarchal beauty standards; I couldn't find the rebellion in it
I support women's wrongs, but it feels unjustified to call this a "satire" of "modern toxic plasticity" when the vengeful heroine is a bored, rich, blonde socialite who is obsessed with maintaining patriarchal beauty standards; I couldn't find the rebellion in it
October 14, 2023
I have so many thoughts on this and may not be at my most articulate now, but here are a few immediate impressions:
- Sorority girl serial killer. Yep, that's the plot.
- This is a bite-sized, fast-paced page turner. If it were much longer, the whole shtick could have gotten old, but this length was short enough for it to stay punchy but long enough to let the demented plot spiral out in interesting directions.
- I actually laughed out loud, sometimes in horror, while reading this one.
- The main character isn't likeable, nor is she probably relatable to most people (skinny, blonde, gorgeous, wealthy, self-absorbed, etc.), but the way she is written makes her deeply disturbed mindset both believable and understandable.
May expand on this when I've had more time to process it, may just leave this as it is. We'll see.
Huge trigger/content warnings for eating disorder content (an uncomfortably intense frequency and level of detail, though it is deliberately written this way and not glorified), as well as the predictable ones for blood/violence/murder.
Other trigger/content warnings: sexual content, sexual assault, date rape drugs, sexual violence (but not the way you're expecting), alcohol and drug abuse, violence toward animals, fat-shaming, mention of domestic abuse, toxic relationship.
- Sorority girl serial killer. Yep, that's the plot.
- This is a bite-sized, fast-paced page turner. If it were much longer, the whole shtick could have gotten old, but this length was short enough for it to stay punchy but long enough to let the demented plot spiral out in interesting directions.
- I actually laughed out loud, sometimes in horror, while reading this one.
- The main character isn't likeable, nor is she probably relatable to most people (skinny, blonde, gorgeous, wealthy, self-absorbed, etc.), but the way she is written makes her deeply disturbed mindset both believable and understandable.
May expand on this when I've had more time to process it, may just leave this as it is. We'll see.
Huge trigger/content warnings for eating disorder content (an uncomfortably intense frequency and level of detail, though it is deliberately written this way and not glorified), as well as the predictable ones for blood/violence/murder.
Other trigger/content warnings: sexual content, sexual assault, date rape drugs, sexual violence (but not the way you're expecting), alcohol and drug abuse, violence toward animals, fat-shaming, mention of domestic abuse, toxic relationship.
Read
December 8, 2023For fans of satire, a-hole women on a killing spree of men, and readers who maybe want a gender-swapped American Psycho!
Tiffany isn’t winning any kind of decent human award: she grew up being awful to her younger sister, is awful to her sorority sisters, and is basically spoiled and behaving as such. And now she’s found something to actually make her feel something and open her appetite: killing men! Quickly realizing––and even checking with a lawyer for advice––that she’ll quickly be suspected if she continues killing frat guys, she expands her killing spree to random prey. But satisfying her murderous desires isn’t enough when copycat killers begin. The boyfriend she’s trying to make “the one” won’t stop grieving, and the relationship starts to show cracks…
(TW fatphobia, diet culture, eating disorders, disordered eating/ mentions past parent cancer death/ date raper, drink drugging/ hidden camera to record sex/ domestic abuse)
--from Book Riot's Unusual Suspects newsleter
Tiffany isn’t winning any kind of decent human award: she grew up being awful to her younger sister, is awful to her sorority sisters, and is basically spoiled and behaving as such. And now she’s found something to actually make her feel something and open her appetite: killing men! Quickly realizing––and even checking with a lawyer for advice––that she’ll quickly be suspected if she continues killing frat guys, she expands her killing spree to random prey. But satisfying her murderous desires isn’t enough when copycat killers begin. The boyfriend she’s trying to make “the one” won’t stop grieving, and the relationship starts to show cracks…
(TW fatphobia, diet culture, eating disorders, disordered eating/ mentions past parent cancer death/ date raper, drink drugging/ hidden camera to record sex/ domestic abuse)
--from Book Riot's Unusual Suspects newsleter
September 14, 2023
Tiffany is a fifth year sorority girl, directionless and bored with life, starving herself for beauty, looking to see what she can get away with. When she is frustrated with a guy she is seeing, he ends up dead and she binges on the violence and junk food, finding herself suddenly satisfied. From there a conscience-less monster is born.
This one is fabulous if you like gratuitous violence with no serious rationale at all. The first murder has some emotional resonance, men pressing women for sex is frustrating. Maybe not murder-worthy in the way it was presented here, but I'll let you be the judge of that. Things spin well out of control from there and it's just a slasher story. It's fun in that way. She isn't quite the smartest with avoiding capture, most of it feels like dumb luck but there is a comeuppance.
This is a good, quick read perfect for spooky season. Serial Killer slashers are fun when done in the right way.
Thanks to Booksparks for the gifted copy. All opinions above are my own.
This one is fabulous if you like gratuitous violence with no serious rationale at all. The first murder has some emotional resonance, men pressing women for sex is frustrating. Maybe not murder-worthy in the way it was presented here, but I'll let you be the judge of that. Things spin well out of control from there and it's just a slasher story. It's fun in that way. She isn't quite the smartest with avoiding capture, most of it feels like dumb luck but there is a comeuppance.
This is a good, quick read perfect for spooky season. Serial Killer slashers are fun when done in the right way.
Thanks to Booksparks for the gifted copy. All opinions above are my own.
August 21, 2023
This one really threw me for a loop! I wasn't expecting to get so engrossed but I finished this over a weekend. It's like Elle Woods' deranged sorority sister meets Psycho meets Scream. I didn't *love* the ending, but it was satisfying enough.
Definitely pick up of you're into slashers, revenge on men, and unlikable protagonists.
Definitely pick up of you're into slashers, revenge on men, and unlikable protagonists.
November 25, 2023
I am stunned. I am shocked. I am speechless.
October 18, 2023
Book Review
Kill for Love by Laura Picklesimer
A Socialite Sorority girl turned serial killer- sounds like the prefect read for spooky season and thriller lovers
But
Honestly I did not love this… it just seemed like the narrative was a bit too predictable, the stereotypes too cliche, the character personalities too exaggerated, and the storyline too implausible
I found myself skimming the pages and not really connected with the characters or where the story was going
I get that it was meant to be satirical but it just didnt work for me
Lots of triggering content as well so reader beware
Thanks to @booksparks for my gifted copy in return for an honest review . Opinions expressed are My own
Kill for Love by Laura Picklesimer
A Socialite Sorority girl turned serial killer- sounds like the prefect read for spooky season and thriller lovers
But
Honestly I did not love this… it just seemed like the narrative was a bit too predictable, the stereotypes too cliche, the character personalities too exaggerated, and the storyline too implausible
I found myself skimming the pages and not really connected with the characters or where the story was going
I get that it was meant to be satirical but it just didnt work for me
Lots of triggering content as well so reader beware
Thanks to @booksparks for my gifted copy in return for an honest review . Opinions expressed are My own
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