Dollycas's Thoughts

Identical triplets, thrown into the foster system at the age of five and split up, suffering years of abuse have now come back together and have become serial killers. Well, at least Iris and Moody have killed men. Until now Sissy has been the master of cleaning up their messes and getting rid of the bodies.

Now it is time for Sissy's first kill and she has chosen Edison. She has six months to have him fall deeply in love with her and then she will kill him. There's just one problem. She has fallen in love with him and her sisters are not happy. Now she has to choose - her family - or Edison? Betraying her sisters may come at the high cost of her life and the life of the man she has come to love.

___

I have read a lot of psychological thrillers over the years but as I started reading this book I was a bit uncomfortable, even telling my husband this may be too much for me. But a few chapters in the story started unfolding like a Criminal Minds episode only without the FBI being called in. These sisters had left several dead bodies behind and thanks to their planning, moving from state to state, and Sissy's clean-up efforts they have not been caught.

It is a gory tale with some explicit language and scenes. Full of twists and tension with a chilling romance, once I started reading I couldn't stop. I had to put it down when my eyes failed to cooperate and spent the next day thinking about if it was wise to pick it back up again. But these girls were messed up in so many ways, they drew me into their story. I had to know how their time in Arizona was going to end.

Ms. DeStefano takes her readers on an emotional roller coaster. She plotted out a tight story, a compelling read. All the characters have depth, being abandoned, and abused for years by their foster families. Their past has more than scarred these young women. The bruises and breaks have healed but their brains and souls are tortured. They have turned their pain onto others in a way that will never release them from what they feel. As the bodies piled up things got more intense both for me and the characters.

The ending was surprising and the final paragraphs sent frigid icicles up and down my spine.

How I'll Kill You wasn't truly an escape of any kind but it is a story that will stick with you long after you read it. Romance and murder, heartbreaking and dark, a truly twisted thriller.

"Make him want you. Make him love you. Make him dead."
I like these rules! ;)

Identical triplets who take turns finding their mark, making them fall in love with them and then killing them. You can't sleep with them unless you plan to kill them. They get away with it all with precision, rules that can't be broken, and their never ending loyalty to each other. But Sissy finally gets to make her mark (kill her mark?) and maybe she's not quite as identical to her sisters as she thought. The "cleaner" of the group, she makes sure there is no evidence left behind. But can she be the person who creates the mess? Did she find her true love in a church going widower named Edison?

Pop, pop, pop that popcorn. This is a fun read and easily bingeable. I'm not quite sure where this lands - definitely has thriller vibes but leans a bit heavy on the romance - though without the tumescent-like adjectives and smarmy sex scenes (thank you, Ren!). I also am unsure how I feel about that ending. *shrug*

Easily predictable but so very entertaining, you'll find yourself rooting for Sissy and her happy ending. Needs more killing though, imo. Highly looking forward to Ren's next release.

Okay... identical triplet sisters who have a habit of alternating kills of their boyfriends, how could not that be interesting to a thriller lover?

The story is told through the POV of the youngest, Sissy. And no, that’s not her real name, but the triplets came up with names for each other because they didn’t like the ones the state had given them after they were found abandoned in a stroller as babies. Anyway, Sissy is the next sister in line to find a mark to make her boyfriend before killing him. And they’re able to get away wit it (like the previous six times) because nobody knows there's multiple of them.

But back to Sissy. She’s always been the “cleaner” of the family and has yet to kill. Meanwhile, her sisters are vastly different and seem to both enjoy the game for their own reasons. Sissy eventually chooses Edison as the man to make fall in love with her before she buries him. But as time ticks down to the inevitable kill, Sissy finds herself second guessing everything including her own sisters.

I will admit the pacing of the story felt a little off. The beginning was very intriguing because you quickly get an idea for each of the triplets’ personality and get glimpses into their dynamic and why they kill for and with each other. You also learn in pieces, their upbringing, how they were split up in different foster homes, and their different experiences within the system. However, I found the middle parts a bit slower. Here, Sissy gets to know Edison more and also begins to truly wonder about her own future and question things about her sisters.

The ending both explosive and thought provoking. There’s some action that occurs and suspense around what choices Sissy and her sisters will make. In the end, you’re left pondering about identity, family and what it even means or where the line may be drawn when it comes to them. It wasn’t all wrapped up in a nice bow because and I really enjoyed that!

Overall, I had fun with this book and will be curious what the author writes next!

Right out of the gate, How I'll Kill You reminded me of Look What You Made Me Do by Elaine Murphy. In both books, the MC is the sister of one or more serial killers and often serves as the clean-up crew when things go awry. However, in How I'll Kill You, it has just become Sissy's turn to do the killing. She carefully chooses her mark, with the help of her triplets, and begins to lay the groundwork to get him to fall for her.

I really liked Sissy, although I didn't understand her motivations once she fell for Edison. Why not tell her sisters to leave her alone, and that she didn't want to kill him? I also didn't quite understand why they were serial killers in the first place--we got some backstory, but not enough to get the motivation beyond the first kill.

This popcorn thriller was a fun, quick read (if a little predictable), and I adored the narration by Karissa Vacker. She did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life, and her narration really carried the plot.

The title of this book is what originally grabbed my attention. How I'll Kill You sounds like it should be a fast paced thriller with some exciting twists and turns in it. I go back and forth on if this book deserves three or four stars. It is somewhere in the middle, I suppose. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. I'm always excited to read an author's debut novel and see if this is someone I want to follow. The problem I had with this book is that it is so hard to classify. Like it is having an identity crisis. If you've ever been to a restaurant that is desperately trying to be both a fast food restaurant and a sit-down restaurant, and you just want to scream, "pick one!" at the owners, that is the same feeling I got reading this book. Pick a genre/direction and go with it. Run with it! But it feels like Ren DeStefano tried to do a little bit too much all within one single novel. Maybe it would have been better as a series? Where we got to learn more about the characters and their backstory elsewhere. Because of that, it seemed to drag on and take a bit longer than my usual reads. It isn't memorable for me, and I so desperately wanted to rave about it to everyone, but it just fell a bit flat in that department for me.

This was filled with twists and turns and craziness! A fun reading experience!

Sissy has always cleaned up for her serial killer sisters, but now it’s her turn to kill. Once she finds a target, she plans how to get him to fall for her and kill him. Only problem is Sissy really starts to fall for him, but her sisters still expect her to follow through.

What follows is Sissy’s journey of finding herself and who she is aside from her sisters. She makes unexpected connections with neighbors and learns just how far she is willing to go to protect those around her.

This is going to be short because really, I don’t want to say too much other than I honestly loved it. I dove right in and was immediately hooked.

How I’ll Kill You was a total binge read. I loved the premise about triplets who kill their boyfriends.
I’ll leave synopsis below incase you’d like to read it.

This one is dark! How can it not be with serial killer sisters? Tense and thrilling.

How I’ll Kill You by Ren DeStefano

Sissy has an…interesting family. Always the careful one, always the cautious one, she has handled the cleanup while her serial killer sisters have carved a path of carnage across the U.S. Now, as they arrive in the Arizona heat, Sissy must step up and embrace the family pastime of making a man fall in love and then murdering him. Her first target? A young widower named Edison—and their mutual attraction is instant. While their relationship progresses, and most couples would be thinking about picking out china patterns and moving in together, Sissy’s family is reminding her to think about picking out burial sites and moving on.

Then something happens that Sissy never anticipated: She begins to feel protective of Edison, and before she can help it, she’s fallen in love. But the clock is ticking, and her sisters are growing restless. It becomes clear that the gravesite she chooses will hide a body no matter what happens; but if she betrays her family, will it be hers?

This is out now, go read it!

I would definitely say go into this one without reading the blurb. You’ll get an extra surprise. This one was a little outside what I would normally read as a thriller/suspense book. This one is definitely a little over the top. I went back and forth trying to decide how much I like it. First I have to say I love that it is different. I am a big fan of reading things that aren’t exactly like what I just read. But somehow I just did not connect with this one. It might be just a little too dark? Or maybe it seemed a little tongue in cheek. Maybe. I’m just not sure why I didn't connect.

But again on the plus side, if I had read the blurb, I had forgotten it by the time I started the book. So there were twists I did not see coming, but that are in the blurb. I really liked those twists.

This is another one where I didn’t like the main characters, but I did want to see where this would go. This really had all the makings of something I should love and I didn’t, but don’t get me wrong I never thought to give up and stop reading it.

If you are fan of unique, dark psychological thrillers, you should give this one a read.

Serial killer sisters! Sissy has been helping her sisters with their crimes, but now it's her turn to seduce and kill a man of her own. I highly recommend reading this engaging and thrilling book to find out what happens when Sissy begins to doubt that this is the right path forward.

Ok, this was such an interesting concept and I really enjoyed it. Three sisters who have a bad habit of killing their boyfriends, and Sissy is the youngest, the careful one, the one that handles cleaning up the messes the other two leave so that there is no trace of what is happening. Now she is falling in love and her sisters are growing restless that she isn't acting fast enough. Will she be able to go through with the plan or will she end up paying the price for going against the plan??

I thought this was a fun and an easy read, and not like one I’ve read in a while. There were a couple of slow parts in here that I began to lose interest but I was glad I kept going as the ending was suspenseful and not how I thought it would be. The audio for this was also excellent, I thought Karissa Vacker did a wonderful job as always.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the digital copy to review. This one is available now.

*eARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley for review

🔪Homicidal Triplets
🔪Intense Thriller
🔪Page Turner
🔪Debut Novel

How I’ll Kill You by Ren DeStefano was a wild ride of a book and a well done debut. The story follows female triplets, Sissy, Moody, and Iris, who travel around the country choosing men to date and kill. That sounds normal, right? 😳 The premise is crazy, but it works. The story held my interest throughout and it was a real page turner. I thought the writing was great and I couldn’t believe this was a debut book. The author knows how to write a thriller that keeps you wanting to read more. I did think the ending was a little too convenient though. I wish it ended differently.

Overall, I had a fun time reading this one and I’d recommend this book to thriller lovers. I look forward to reading more from DeStefano.

4/5 stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐

𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙮-𝙪𝙥-𝙖𝙡𝙡-𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧, 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙣𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙮 𝙝𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙠𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙗𝙤𝙮𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙮𝙚𝙩: 𝙛𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙠.

📍 Read if you like:
• Books About Serial Killers
• Sibling Relationships
• Morally Gray Characters
• Bingeable Thrillers

This book was absolutely WILD!! When I read what the premise was about I was immediately intrigued. I love when we follow a serial killer as a main character… in this case, make it triplets.

I would highly recommend reading this book without not knowing much. It’s definitely a binge-worthy thriller. In this one, we follow three identical triplets who kill their boyfriends - how freaking insane. They all work together and help each other get rid of the body, evidence, and of course, commit the crime.

I have heard a few people mention this book is similar to 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨, which I have not read yet. This book takes place in Arizona, which was so fun. One of the triplets ends up falling in love with her next victim… which ends up messing up the plans the triplets had. I don’t want to say too much about that aspect, but oh man, this book was so entertaining.

I did, however, find the book a bit slow at times. It took me a while to actually push through, but it may have been bad timing on my side. I could definitely see why this would be a “stay-up-all-night” kind of thriller. It was fun, unique, and a wild ride of a thriller. I would highly recommend checking it out.

Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the free gifted book and PRH Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review, all thoughts are my own!

“Rainwood was peaceful only a few weeks ago, and some dark cloud has shadowed the blue desert sky. He’s scared that it will take me, and he has no idea that I’m the one who’s brought it.”

Oh what a wicked tale it is when broken people find other broken people. What a deliciously dark and devious story!

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because of @karissavacker narration. Spot on and a delight to listen to, as always.

This book had me at identical triplets and serial killers. I could not wait to see what the author did with this premise. And it did not disappoint! These girls are awful, obviously. But when you learn more about their rough start in the world you almost start to feel for them a bit.

The story flowed quickly and I just couldn’t wait to see what they would do next. This is a fun, quick read and a wild ride! And if you like audiobooks I highly recommend listening to this one.

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Berkley Publishing, and the author for the #gifted copy. The audible copy is my own.

Thank you to NetGalley, Berkeley Publishing, and Ren DeStefano for a copy of How I’ll Kill You in exchange for an honest review. Okay- this one freaking gripped me from the first chapter and didn’t let me go until the end. I don’t want to give away much but let’s just say, triplets who could be serial killers, love, murder, drama- yes please!! I truly had so many ideas on how things were going to play out and I was completely wrong. I truly was satisfied with the ending but also sad. I found myself loving morally grey characters when I normally don’t. This needs to be on every thriller readers radar and I cannot wait to read more from this author. You can pick this one up now!

When Jayne asked us if anyone wanted a review copy of this book, I was probably the most natural choice, but I demurred. Sure, I enjoy a good twisty thriller, but I’m philosophically opposed to serial-killer protagonists.

Still, I had to admit, the blurb was compelling:

Make him want you.

Make him love you.

Make him dead.

Sissy has an…interesting family. Always the careful one, always the cautious one, she has handled the cleanup while her serial killer sisters have carved a path of carnage across the US. Now, as they arrive in the Arizona heat, Sissy must step up and embrace the family pastime of making a man fall in love and then murdering him. Her first target? A young widower named Edison—and their mutual attraction is instant. While their relationship progresses, and most couples would be thinking about picking out china patterns and moving in together, Sissy’s family is reminding her to think about picking out burial sites and moving on.

Then something happens that Sissy never anticipated: She begins to feel protective of Edison, and before she can help it, she’s fallen in love. But the clock is ticking, and her sisters are growing restless. It becomes clear that the gravesite she chooses will hide a body no matter what happens; but if she betrays her family, will it be hers?

So, I reconsidered, put aside my doubts, and plunged in. At first, I was glad I did, but now, having finished the book a bit ago, my feelings about it are complicated.

Sissy, Moody and Iris are identical triplets. Those aren’t their real names; at least they aren’t the names that the three were given after being discovered as infants, abandoned in a single stroller, in California. But they are the names they’ve chosen to use amongst themselves. Sissy has another name now, an alias she’s taken on since the three moved to a small town in Arizona: she is Jade.

The triplets are 24; they’ve been traveling around the country since they were 18. It was then that Sissy received a frantic call that Iris’s lover, her married high school guidance counselor, was dead, and her sisters needed her help. They’ve killed five more men in that time (for a total of six, including the guidance counselor). Iris and Moody apparently have three kills apiece, but Sissy aborted her one attempt at luring and murdering a man, saying that he wasn’t the “right one.” She seems to have a rather romantic, dreamy vision of murder, though her participation in the previous deaths has been confined to cleanup and logistics (not very romantic tasks). Sissy grew up an avid fan of true crime shows, and so she knows the best ways to make someone disappear without leaving any evidence behind.

The minute Sissy spots Edison, she gets the feeling that he is the one. She stalks him and manages to catch his attention by singing at the church he attends. Their relationship progresses quickly from there. Sissy helps Edison when he breaks his sobriety; he’s an alcoholic who has been sober for years.

Meanwhile, Iris and Moody are mostly confined to the apartment the three have rented, stuck inside with the blinds shut. No one in this small town is supposed to know there are three of them; for one thing, one will be somewhere public providing an alibi when the deed is being done. That’s part of how the plan works.

Things start off rather rocky though; in one of their first days in town, Moody and Sissy stop out in the desert by an unbuilt subdivision (Sissy wants to show her sister where she plans to bury the body), and an older man in a truck stops to see if they need help. Moody hides, and Sissy thinks she can handle the situation, but Moody abruptly hits the stranger over the head with a tire iron. Just like that, they are having to get rid of a body, and it’s not even someone that’s part of their “plan.”

Rereading this, I’m kind of horrified by the murder. Sissy does spend some time wondering if the man had a wife, and if so, would she wonder what had happened to him, etc. But she never seems to feel real remorse or a sense of horror, even while knocking out the corpse’s teeth with a hammer to make him harder to identify.

Sissy continues to get closer to Edison while also starting a friendship with her next door neighbor, Dara. Her sisters quickly come to suspect that Sissy isn’t eager to kill Edison, though Sissy herself takes a long time to admit that to herself. She meets Edison’s stepdaughter, the child of his late wife. Their relationship is tense at first, but Sissy manages to ingratiate herself and finds herself coming to care about yet another person out of her tight, three-person circle.

I was really caught up in How I’ll Kill You when I was reading it. The thriller aspect is decent; it was hard to imagine an HEA so I was left wondering if Sissy would end up killing Edison, which created a good deal of tension. But what really drew me to the story was the dysfunctional relationship of the triplets.

Sissy, Moody and Iris were mostly separated as children after the age of five; for a good chunk of that time Sissy lived with a foster mother who was decent to her, while the other two cycled through various foster and group homes. It was a tough upbringing for all three girls, who saw each other infrequently. When the did manage to get together, Sissy was often compelled to prove her loyalty to her sisters and disdain for her foster mother, which of course caused problems that ended with her going to a group home as well.

Ultimately, with a little distance, I’ve decided that I still find the “serial killer protagonist” trope distasteful. What compelled me was the very human and relatable story of how Sissy, Moody and Iris chose to reinforce their bonds and smother their individuality. It’s never really clear why they target romantic partners for their murders; I had at first assumed some sort of empowered-feminist angle, but that’s not really evident in the story. If anything, at least from Sissy’s perspective (which is somewhat skewed by the fact that she’s never actually killed a lover before), it’s about keeping the man with you forever, or at least ending any life they have after you. Which is, of course, quite sick.

But the killings have an even more sinister (at least to me) purpose that becomes clear: much like Sissy being forced to, say, put a dead mouse in her foster mother’s bed to “prove” that she hated her and was loyal to her sisters, the murders bind the sisters together ever more tightly. There’s the months of enforced hiding in a tiny apartment together, the occasional swapping of identities, and the huge fact that they are complicit in crimes that would end in life imprisonment for each of them. Every kill, every cleanup, every step of the plans they make and execute reinforces the notion that the three are a single organism, and no one of them can break off without killing all of them (literally or figuratively).

On a basic level I could relate to the bonds of family and the sometimes painful process of individuation. Of course, the triplets take everything a level that absolutely can’t relate to, but I was fascinated and compelled to see how it would all end. I cared about Sissy; at times her naivete about murder felt unrealistic, but at the same time she had experienced a lot of trauma in her life and had defense mechanisms built up, so perhaps she was really compartmentalizing and genuinely wasn’t in touch with the idea that she didn’t actually want to kill anyone.

For me there’s an odd disconnect between the “co-dependent sisters” and the “merry murderesses” plotlines. I think for the latter to have worked on any level for me it would have had to have been highly stylized, with victims that I as a reader wouldn’t care about (we don’t have many details on their victims at all, but that didn’t keep me from feeling bad that they’d been brutally killed). Instead, the story starts to get grim as it becomes clear that rather than one smooth organism comprised of equal parts, Sissy has been to some degree manipulated by both Moody and Iris for most of her life.

The ending didn’t really work for me, for reasons that would be too spoilery to go into. But it boiled down again to a clash between realism and fantasy. There are some things you just don’t come back from. My grade for How I’ll Kill You is a B-.

Best,

Jennie

Like I said in my immediate review on Goodreads…. This was the most WTFuckery I’ve read in a long time. Everyone in here was just too ok with all this killing they were doing. I just don’t know how they all just went along with this! But it made for a great story and now I’m definitely going to be on pins and needles until DeStefano writes another book because WTF lol

First things first, the plot. Although I wish we had some more indepth info about their backgrounds, I do understand why we weren’t given it. Like I need to know what dude did for her to start THIS. I hate to say this because they say this about women all the time, but this seemed dramatic af lol At the most they just deserved an ass whoopin, not all this that started. It just seemed super weird. And then there’s the fact that they have just been going on with this person. Like what?! How did no one say anything???? And the way they picked their victims? Making a man fall in love with you and then murdering them? It was so cray cray.

The characters were creepy. They put all their trust in only each other, and it backfired. I only half liked the MC because of the way she acted like she had her own brain. I say this because no one else in this book seemed to have one. Not even the boyfriend. All of them seemed to have someone else thinking for them, but the person thinking for them wasn’t all good up there to begin with. It was a lot.

I think the coolest part of this is the fact that Sissy is basically still a villain. I thought it was fascinating that even knowing that I still sympathsized with her because she was the one that changed her mind. She was the one with semi-good sense. I just didn’t know how to feel because I was actually rooting for her. And I wanted to. I think? Idk this book felt morally wrong and Idk how to change it lol

I don’t want to say too much because of spoilers, but I promise what you think is happening is not lol Just know that this is crazy and I don’t think I’m going to stop recommending this anytime soon. If you’re looking for more WTF did I just read, check out The Chain by Adrian McKinty. I flew through that book just like this one. Both were so so good!

Real rating 4.5

This book gave psycho killer vibes from the very first page. It’s not a slow burn at all and we dive straight into the WTF moments. The tone was similar to My Lovely Wife in that you’re not guessing who the killer is, you know from the beginning and are watching it unfold the whole time. I really liked this suspenseful page turner and I would recommend it to anyone looking for their next stay-up-all-night read.

Twisted! 3 sisters that'll go to the end of the earth to protect themselves until they don't. I listened to the audio of this (thank you PRH) and I loved the narration of it all. I loved how each sister had a "job" in each of the murders. They were professional murderess' (if that's a thing). It kept me engaged the entire time and I was curious to see how it was going to end. It didn't disappoint. I did find the ending a bit rushed. But overall, a great thriller!

Thrillers and murder mysteries are not my typical genre of choice, but when I saw the description of identical triplet serial killers, I had to check it out! I started reading the ARC of the book, but was having trouble getting into it, so switched over to audiobook and that did the trick! This book is full of twists and surprises, leaving me guessing until the very end!

4/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for the eARC!