Book Meme - Day 3
Day 03 - The best book you've read in the last 12 months
Psychopath by Keith Ablow. I grabbed it from the library because I love my serial killer books, and, like... whoa.
So, we've got Jonah, a psychiatrist who does temporary work at hospitals all over the USA. He's a really really good psychiatrist. He's also a serial killer.
Jonah's pathology and emotions regarding killing were incredibly interesting to me - on the one hand, he goes around offing strangers, but on the other, it's agonizingly guilt-inducing, and he spends most of his scenes struggling to not kill people. In the parts where we see him doing his work as a psychiatrist, it's abundantly clear that he's not only good at what he does, but completely dedicated to helping people, if only because when he 'absorbs their pain', he doesn't feel the urge to kill.
And you know what? The hero was also really good. The book starts out with Jonah, and when the perspective switched to the hero, Clevenger, I was like "aw, man, now I have to read about this loser instead", but I actually ended up really liking him, especially his relationship with his adopted son Billy (who was accused of murdering his birth parents and has some issues surrounding that). There was a romantic plot too, and I normally don't enjoy those, but even that didn't bother me in this book. I can honestly say that there was not a single character, plot, or subplot that I did not enjoy reading about.
From a completely objective point of view, no, it's not a perfect book, and if you don't have a thing for murderer books, as I do, you probably won't enjoy it. But if you love a good serial killer story, this is definitely something you need to read.
Psychopath by Keith Ablow. I grabbed it from the library because I love my serial killer books, and, like... whoa.
So, we've got Jonah, a psychiatrist who does temporary work at hospitals all over the USA. He's a really really good psychiatrist. He's also a serial killer.
Jonah's pathology and emotions regarding killing were incredibly interesting to me - on the one hand, he goes around offing strangers, but on the other, it's agonizingly guilt-inducing, and he spends most of his scenes struggling to not kill people. In the parts where we see him doing his work as a psychiatrist, it's abundantly clear that he's not only good at what he does, but completely dedicated to helping people, if only because when he 'absorbs their pain', he doesn't feel the urge to kill.
And you know what? The hero was also really good. The book starts out with Jonah, and when the perspective switched to the hero, Clevenger, I was like "aw, man, now I have to read about this loser instead", but I actually ended up really liking him, especially his relationship with his adopted son Billy (who was accused of murdering his birth parents and has some issues surrounding that). There was a romantic plot too, and I normally don't enjoy those, but even that didn't bother me in this book. I can honestly say that there was not a single character, plot, or subplot that I did not enjoy reading about.
From a completely objective point of view, no, it's not a perfect book, and if you don't have a thing for murderer books, as I do, you probably won't enjoy it. But if you love a good serial killer story, this is definitely something you need to read.