Short, terse and unflinching. London at his best.

The narrative voice was spot on - and I'm a Victorianist, so I'm hard to please when it comes to modern authors writing period prose. Great balance between psychological and physical horror. The atmosphere of dread starts on page one and never lets go. Eerie, compelling, disturbing in all the best ways.

Watson covers a lot of ground, but manages to keep things interesting. I especially appreciated his focus on indigenous knowledge and how accurate it was.

I recognize Capote's skill as a writer and I have a particular fondness for "Dill," even when he's all grown up. Just the same, I could not make myself appreciate this book as much as I'm sure it deserves. Part of it is the slowness of it (not always a fault, but it didn't work for me here), but the main thing is his focus on the killers.

At the time this was written, true crime (or, I suppose Tru crime in this case) wasn't a genre. People were naturally curious about what could make a person do such hideous things, so the focus on understanding the killers makes sense. If we can understand, maybe we can protect ourselves better. It's the same interest that drove the success of Harold Schechter and Anne Rule. But for twenty-first century readers, jaded by long exposure to offender-focused books, it's hard to engage with Capote's fascination.

I came away from this novel feeling that Capote identified with the killers in the sense that he, too, felt ostracized and scorned by society - being a gay man in mid-twentieth century America was no easy life. But the flip side of that is a lack of real compassion for the Clutter family. Yes, he acknowledges how horrible it is, what happened to them, but there's no real horror for him. It's understandable, but for a modern reader, it rankles.

Horrible story, amazing writing - which is point, of course. Even after all these years and several rereadings (thanks grad school), I find myself momentarily forgetting to hate Humbert, forgetting to fight the riptide of sympathy he's created for his monster. Now that's genius.

I am definitely not the target audience for Fight Club and I despise the way it's been co-opted by a segment of "man culture" that completely fails to see the point, but there's no denying Palahnuik's skill as a social critic.

As someone who likes horror, but hates gratuitous gore, I really enjoyed this novel. The plot takes a while to build, but the creepiness and dread are there all along the way. I both worried about the protagonist and couldn't help sympathizing with the deer-headed woman, which was a delightful paradox.

If I were more of a basketball fan, I think this would have gotten an even higher rating from me. That element didn't click on a personal level, but I *love* the way Jones intertwines mythical horror and modern everyday life - brilliant!

Yes, I know it's meant to be dark satire, but Ellis takes rather too much pleasure in the sadistic treatment of women. Also, and this is not Ellis's fault, but it matters, the cultural response to this book (and its movie) contains a frighteningly large contingent of young men who unironically idealize Patrick Bateman. It's the same thing that's happened to Palahnuik's Fight Club, but extra disturbing given the source material here.

This is kind of the granddaddy of serial killer novels. Harris's work in general is problematic, but there's no denying that this is a gripping novel. Reading it now, knowing all that came after in terms of both the cultural obsession with serial killers and the many iterations of Harris's work, adds another layer of interest.

Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

McCarthy is a brilliant writer. He'll also burn the will to live right out of you. Usually, his combination of beauty and abject horror results in stunning work that I can't help but love despite the pain, but this one crossed the line for me.

It's a personal thing, though. I read it as a new parent, with all the turmoil and hormones and sleep deprivation that implies. Not a great decision, given the plot. It affected me deeply enough and negatively enough that even now, years later, I absolutely will not be revisiting this novel to see if my response has changed over time. My original experience is still that vivid, no refresher is needed.