Katy Brent

'The Murder After The Night Before' isn't the light, witty but dark book that the cover and the title had led me to expect. It's a hard-hitting thriller that delivers the full emotional impact of murder, sexual assault, revenge porn/shame porn, all aggravated by the main character's habitual binge drinking, low self-esteem, grief and constant simmering anger.

The book feels witty at first because humour is one of the techniques that Molly Monroe uses as a coping mechanism. So, initially, the fact that Molly wakes in her own bed with no knowledge of how she got there or of the identity of the hot, fully clothed man who is lying next to her seems comic rather than sinister.

The humour is quickly pushed aside by a growing sense of dread followed by overwhelming grief as Molly starts to discover what happened the night before.

Within hours, Molly's life is in ruins and she has almost no one she can trust, including herself. As she struggles to knit together the fragments of memory that remain to her, Molly starts to dread finding out what she actually did on the evening when her best friend was killed.

I was impressed by Katy Brent's ability to make depression and shame and grief feel so real while still weaving an absorbing, page-turning mystery.

'The Murder After The Night Before' isn't a light read. Much of the action is driven by misogyny. There is abuse on almost every page: ranging from gaslighting and old-boy-network cover-ups through online shaming to sexual assault and murder. The impact of all of these things on Molly Monroe is amplified by her history of binge drinking, her doubts about her own mental health, her low self-esteem, her habit of being viciously judgemental when she has been drinking, her social isolation, her grief for her murdered friend and her growing guilt about having at best failed her friend and at worst having contributed to her death.

'The Murder After The Night Before' has twenty-eight chapters. The first twenty-six chapters (93% of the book) were a five-star read that kept me so engaged with Molly that I was reluctant to put the book down.

I felt that the last two dropped the ball. The pace and the timeline changed. The encounter between Molly and her dad is well-written and provides an insight into how Molly's character was formed but I felt it came too late in the narrative. Placed as it was, it felt wedged in. The description of the murder was also well-written, but the change in point-of-view was jarring and placing it after the identity of the murderer had already been revealed made it feel like an add-on rather than the central scene it might have been. The final chapter made me a little impatient. In contrast to the vivid realism of the rest of the book, this was hard to believe, took too long and felt like a forced silver lining.

Despite the ending, 'The Murder After The Night Before' is a great piece of work and I recommend it to you.… (altro)

Erittäin onnistunut chick lit -romaani Me Toon vanavedessä: makaaberilla tai splatter-henkisellä mustalla huumorilla ryyditetty teos yhdistelee sopivasti vanhaa ja uutta, ennalta arvattavaa ja yllätyksellistä ja kiepsauttaa päälaelleen populaarikulttuurin kuluneet asetelmat, joissa nuoret kauniit naiset ovat uhreja ja nerokkaat sarjamurhaajat yleensä miehiä. Nopealukuisen ja mukavasti kutkuttavan teoksen suomennos on lisäksi oikein toimiva. Yhden tähden pudotin siksi, että päähenkilön veganismia olisi voinut kuvata paremmin ja että sama moraaliseksi kuvattu sankaritar harrasti lentomatkailua vailla huolen häivää.… (altro)

2.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

The colour palette of death is really rather pretty.

With a little bit of Dexter and Promising Young Woman, How to Kill Men and Get Away with It was a pop culture filled fictional tale of an Instagram influencer murdering men who sexually assault women as a cathartic release. Kitty Collins is the heiress of her family's slaughterhouse business but shuns that legacy as she makes money from posting about her brunches, traveling, and vegan lifestyle on Instagram. The beginning has her commenting on brands and how many followers her friends have, setting her up to appear vacuous. Told all from her point-of-view, there's a definite tint of cynicism and bubbling anger and hurt underneath it all and when a creep follows her home from the bar and winds up dead, her reaction makes it obvious the title isn't just click bait.

Perfect boobs. Perfect life. I guess that's my 'brand'.

The beginning of this kept me locked in as I was trying to figure Kitty out, was she a Dexter like character that had been warped and shaped by her trauma, an unreliable narrator, or a simple sociopath that reveled in their means and opportunity? The story leads you a couple ways and used certain characters, like a love interest named Charlie that comes in around midway and not revealing an obvious more to the story about Kitty's missing father, to keep the reader never quite certain about some things. It was a little after the halfway mark and ending that I thought the wheels kind of came off and I thought the story lost the plot of what it might have been trying.

He cannot know that I'm the hunter here. He needs to believe he's in control.

Bringing Charlie in, did bring out a different layer of Kitty and I think probably humanized her to readers that were less willing to go along with the macabre farce of Kitty's extracurricular activities but I think he ultimately ended up falling flat after a couple late ending reveals. There was also a later sexual scene that had him questioning if they got hot over some sexual assault stories that didn't land right for me, not hitting the mark of early dark humor that worked. I also thought the stalker messaging Kitty throughout the story had a very wheels fell off reveal and ending. Sexual assault is a tough one to approach with dark humor and while I thought the beginning got it, the ending went south (what was with having a late, quick, oh the character lied about her assault??).

There's an unspoken rule between us that we don't talk about The Thing. Talking could crack the veneer.

This took place in London and had a ton of pop culture references, as an American I still understood the majority but there were a few that went on by me; the contemporary additives feel like this story is going to get dated very quickly. You'll also have to go along with the supposed to be dark humor and not question how things like cellphone GPS doesn't apparently exist in this world and Kitty has been able to get away with her side gig. I liked the first half with it's ghoulish poking humor but the second half's tone didn't land right and some of the reveals had the plot's wheels falling off.… (altro)