I was very excited to read this book when I heard about it. I expected "Dexter" meets "Buffy". This ended up being super fun, waaaaay cuter than it had any right to be, with enough twisted Dexter moments in there to appeal to the darkest-hearted out there. A twisted backstory, two adorable grandparents, a "what is going on here?" mystery, several "will everything turn out okay?!?!?!" edge-of-your-seat moments, a villain you absolutely want to get murdered SO HARD. Then throw in some cool music and fandom references, some smoothie recipes from Clare's cookbook like all my favorite Food Mystery genre novels do, and this ended up being a mashup of ALL of my favorite things. I could not go to sleep until I finished reading this and wrote a review. I definitely intend to buy this for my guilty pleasure, "I can't sleep and can't decide if I want to watch Buffy or Dexter" book.

A HUGE thank you to Don Roff, Netgalley and Parliament House for this ARC to review.

Clare is vegan. She's concerned about Styrofoam packaging and wasting water by letting the sink run. She's less concerned about the people she's killed, but apparently that's okay because it only happens when the Other Clare steps in and they were bad people. She's not trying to stop her other self from killing and seemingly not too worried about getting caught. Imagine Dexter as a bratty teenage girl.

This is the worst book I've ever read.

I almost stopped reading a number of times but by the time I got halfway I needed to finish so I could write this accurately.

I was very excited by the premise : Sixteen year old Clare murders bad people and protects her town.

It's not as exciting as that. Yes, she murders people but she has a split personality that does the murders for her. No she doesn't really think this is weird, or tell anyone. Cuz ya know, they were obviously bad people so why bother even though every time she murders someone she COULD go to the police and tell them. But then we'd have no story. What little of it there is.

Clare is the perfect Mary Sue. She's beautiful, vegan, knows krav maga, is super smart, too cool for you, and can do no wrong. She speaks in outdated references and even misused ones. Claire is SOOO cool. Did I mention she's cool? Okay let's see what else....oh, there's jokes about anorexia, school shootings, and rape. Also a random ghost thrown in that's never explained but I assume is ripped off from Dexter.

Most of Clare's "psycholepsy" is also barely explained beyond "lots of stuff happened to her and she's always been without feelings so...murderer." The constant flashbacks under the guise of a movie script formula really do nothing but take up space. Yes, we get it. CLARE IS CREEPY. CREEPY AND COOL. She's Wednesday Adams without the personality. We get it. Also SHE IS A SERIAL KILLER. SHE KILLS PEOPLE AND FIGHTS BAD GUYS. No she doesn't have a personality beyond that. Just go with it.

Just do yourself a favor and skip this one. Save yourself the headache and rage. This isn't fun, it's trying too hard to be something it never will be.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.