I’ve read two books now featuring a serial killer as a main character. And while that isn’t a lot, it’s weird that it happened twice right? Anyhoo, You’d Look Better as a Ghost is, yes, about serial killers, but it’s dedicated to a character study of what pushes our buttons. Keep reading this book review of You’d Look Better as a Ghost for my full thoughts.
Summary
The night after her father’s funeral, Claire meets Lucas in a bar. Lucas doesn’t know it, but it’s not a chance meeting. One thoughtless mistyped email has put him in the crosshairs of an extremely put-out serial killer. But before they make eye contact, before Claire lets him buy her a drink—even before she takes him home and carves him up into little pieces—something about that night is very wrong. Because someone is watching Claire. Someone who is about to discover her murderous little hobby.
The thing is, it’s not sensible to tangle with a part-time serial killer, even one who is distracted by attending a weekly bereavement support group and trying to get her art career off the ground. Will Claire finish off her blackmailer before her pursuer reveals all? Let the games begin . . .
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
You’d Look Better as a Ghost reminds me of those cats which slowly push something across a shelf until it falls off. They’re testing your limitations, wanting to see you flinch, seeing how close they can get it, until it doesn’t matter anymore. The characters in You’d Look Better as a Ghost are like that. It’s about people who are always moving forwards, unhappy with what they have, who won’t let it go. Who are motivated by anger, jealously, revenge, desire.
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Beginning with heartbreak and grief, it’s a story which all of a sudden – and quite quickly – falls off the rails. But as it continues, we realize maybe it was always heading this way. It’s a series of times you convince yourself that was okay, that this is the exception, that it’s the last time. You’d Look Better as a Ghost asks us where our thoughts lie, and with whom. It revolves around the ways we are all the main characters of our own stories, self-absorbed and contained. The illusions of goodness we all have. Are we good even when we do one bad thing? Does it cancel it all out?
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