I loved this book so much! I haven’t shut up about it since finishing it. A wild ride of a book that was perfect and disturbing.

This book is unapologetically blood-soaked and unhinged! I devoured it. Although the story is quite sad and gruesome, the prose is beautiful and it makes for a quick read. Not for the faint of heart!

An unhinged governess with morbid intrusive thoughts? Sold! This is definitely not Jane Eyre.

I was locked in at the beginning. It was giving me all of the gothic vibes that I love.

Winifred was an interesting blend of Wednesday Addams and Patrick Bateman.

I liked the sarcastic tone and the descriptions were dark and unsettling.

But there wasn’t any character development. The story became more and more illogical and confused. It’s disappointing because I really thought this was going to be at least a four or five star read.

It had some good elements, but they just never came together in any satisfying or cohesive way.

**Thanks to W. W. Norton & Company / Liveright & NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review**

YES. I will be thinking of this brilliant horror novel for years to come. What a weird, but beautifully written story. If you pick up one horror book this year please let it be this one.

Feito captures the period with stunning prose and verbiage that immerses readers in this Gothic yuletide tale. It's descriptive and lively, making for a brisk read that's engaging. There's an efficiency the the storytelling that never sacrifices the violence or scares, made all the more intriguing by Winnifred Notty's matter-of-fact demeanor. Winnifred makes for a great anti-heroine on paper, for her lack of shame over her impolite behavior or her violent ambitions, further making this a page turner.

But it all unravels once the Christmas-set climax arrives. Feito paints a gory picture of the holiday, with enough humor and carnage to satisfy. Yet, it also flattens Winnifred's arc into a shallow, uninteresting line. A quick epilogue wraps things up a bit too tidily, robbing Winnifred's story of depth or impact. It's a breezy holiday horror story that never really grapples with some of the headier topics it introduces, instead reveling in superficial, salacious details over subtext. This is a story that wears its AMERICAN PSYCHO influences on its sleeves, but Winnifred is more of an empty vessel than a fully realized sociopath. Feito's latest only briefly ponders if killers are made or born in an oppressive Victorian society, but mostly they're just hollow and straightfoward. It makes for an entertaining enough read, but one that doesn't leave a mark.

Thank you Netgalley and Liveright Publishing for my ARC!

A bloody tale of Yuletide murder, dark comedy and an unserious governess. I thought the book was fast, easy to read and honestly pretty brutal. The kills were intense and the inner monologue of the main character truly made me laugh a few times. A good deranged read.

It sounded interesting. But the book lost me pretty quickly. There are a lot of instances that just don't feel like they fit or took me out of the story completely. How did a mother not notice the baby she had wasn't the one that was hers? There's moments when the logic just doesn't make any sense at all and it brought my enjoyment down hard.

This book is insane and I loved it to death. There are so many quotable lines in this book. It is one of the most darkly funny stories I’ve come across in a very long time. Ms. Notts is a truly incomparable character and her thoughts are so gloriously inappropriate. And the ending to this one, wow. This will be talked about a ton when it comes out in February.

This is my first title by Virginia Feito and I was not prepared for the ride I was taken on.

Ms. Notty has for a while known she was not like others and must use her wit to navigate everyday life as a governess to pass to those around her.

Victorian Psycho is told from the perspective of our title's namesake. Despite the gruesome look into Ms. Winifred Notty's mind there is a lightness in the narrative that makes this feel lighthearted and humorous. The moment she meets up with her wards she is threatening to eat them (to the children's own delight.) Quite a few times I found myself laughing aloud to myself.

This was a delight to read. Thank you for the advanced reader's copy!

I'm obsessed with this book. It was truly horrific. I only wish I had more stars to give it. 10/10, would be forced into this bitch's mind for a million more pages if I could.

This was a delectably morbid story of a psychopath who just wants revenge. I thought it was interesting that the author saw nature as the cause of Winifred's actions, rather than nurture or a mix of both. It was so interesting to see into the mind of a serial killer, even if it was fictional. If you love true crime and horror, this is a book for you!

On the one hand, Victorian Psycho is just what it says on the tin. We get a first-person account of a psychopathic young woman in Victorian England who has been hired as a governess in a great house. If the title isn’t enough of a spoiler, the narrative takes no time to establish that Fred is and has long been completely unhinged. There are passing references to past murders, bloody fantasies, and a disturbing propensity to bite things, including the severed calf’s head in the kitchen.

But there’s also a great homage to the novel’s gothic forerunners, with familiar character types, a mystery regarding parentage, as well as romantic scandals, but the novel seems almost entirely uninterested in them because Fred is uninterested in them. The only thing Fred really cares about is unlocking her family secret and murder, and the two go effortlessly hand in hand.

I’d be remiss in discussing Victorian Psycho is I didn’t mention that it is hilarious. The humor may be pitch black (and kind of gross), but it drips from every page. Fred isn’t just a psychopath; she’s also supremely observant, poking fun at the ridiculousness of the upper and lower classes alike. If it weren’t for all of the dead babies, the novel would be a comedy.

As much gory fun as Victorian Psycho is, I was left with a nagging sense that something was missing. The plot goes the only place it can possibly go, and it does so propulsively, and as a character study it’s both fascinating and terrifying, but it doesn’t necessarily add up to much beyond vibes. That said, the vibes are exquisite, and as black comedy, the novel hits page after page, actually leaving me laughing out loud at several passages.

What a wild read! I want more! This is a satirical piece on vengeance. Want to feel rage and laugh out loud while you do so? Did you think you would ever be asked that?

Winifred Notty, hired as governess for the snobbish Pounds family, arrives at Ensor House ready to play her part. By day, she "educates" the children (though French stays OFF the curriculum) and entertains the eccentric whims of the family patriarch. Yet, she continues to be distracted and compelled by a darkness dwelling inside of her, to which she finally gives in to on Christmas Eve to devilish results.

Nothing gets me in the holiday spirit quite like a murderous Victorian woman! Sure, Mariah Carey's nice, but have you ever read about a literal psycho biting a raw cow's head? Guaranteed to do the trick :)

At one point, Winifred and the Pounds family and their Christmas guests are dining on a swan, described as tough and acrid and hard to chew - and even harder to swallow. I'm sure for many, this will perfectly describe Victorian Psycho. Yes, there are plenty of descriptive scenes of murder, yes, there's gore, so if that's not your thing, I'd steer clear. But if the wicked and vile are up your street, I'd seek this one out. Clocking in at a snappy 200 pages, it's a quick read and a deliciously dark delight.

Amongst all of the violent scenes of murder and the unexpectedly revolting description of their Christmas feast, which actually might have been grosser than anything else in these pages, I was surprised at how hilarious the book is. I feel like the more we got to know Winifred, each scene got funnier, and I laughed out loud (and unfortunately, snorted) more than once while reading.

Feito's writing is beautiful and descriptive, effortlessly evoking a looming and mazelike gothic manor. I love how the book can be as deep or as shallow as you want it to. You can read into the takedown of the upper class society or the Victorian ideals of femininity, or you can just ignore that and be swept away by a hilarious psycho :)

Thank you to @w.w.norton and @netgalley for the ARC! Victorian Psycho is out February 4, 2025

An outstandingly graphic and gruesome tale! I was 100% there for it!

Feito's writing is so smart and elegant, even while getting disturbingly graphic with the thoughts and actions of the protagonist. I was enthralled with this story, hardly being able to put it down. I found myself eagerly awaiting what was to come in the next chapter, and to see just how this story came to a close.

I often experience disappointment with victorian era tales because they always seem to feel more modern, but that was not the case with this one. Feito does extremely well at providing language and settings that seem true to the victorian era. It served the story well, and added a sense of submersion for me, the reader.

For fans of horror with gore, I would highly recommend!

OMG! Very dark and campy, eat the rich, kill everyone, blood and guts and more blood, and the ending! I loved it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for providing me with an eARC of Victorian Psycho in exchange for my honest review!

I'd already received an eARC of this on NetGalley when I heard about how it's getting a movie adaptation starring Margaret Qualley, which is when I decided to bump this book up my TBR pile. I'm so damn glad to have made that choice, since it's turned out to be an unnerving and grimly humorous tale that's strengthened by the sociopathic complexity of its antiheroic protagonist. Virginia Feito guides me down the psychological twists and turns of Winifred's interior world, making me feel like I'm really getting to know her character—maybe getting know a bit too much of her murderous soul. That being said, she does become a fairly endearing individual for us to connect with, particularly while we learn about her past, and it's interesting to compare her with the people around her—people who leave you walking away from them with the bitter aftertaste of disdain clinging to your throat.

Overall, I'm officially rating Victorian Psycho 4.25 out of 5 stars, which I'm rounding down to 4 stars. Now I'm keen to read another book by Feito, Mrs. March.

I absolutely just devoured this book, read it in one sitting, and the first thing I said when I read the final sentence was “Well that was fucking crazy” which pretty much sums up the experience of reading this.

It’s gothic and unsettling and you’re really taken on this journey of discovering just how mad the head of the person you, as the reader, are residing in is. The writing is extremely visceral and the acts violent, making the title apt. One thing in particular that I found and really enjoyed was that some of the descriptions of the food and eating were more disgusting than the violence.

Oh yeah! This book is set during Christmas!? I didn’t know that going in but it makes now the perfect time to read it! I did really enjoy this and I think if you like horror books with batshit crazy MCs who have murderous intentions all wrapped up in a Victorian gothic atmosphere then this is the book for you!

What a wonderfully grotesque story!
Winnifred is a very well written and confusing narrator. Confusing in the way that you want to hate her, but she’s hilarious and witty. The way she speaks is so eloquent and almost endearing? I almost forgot she was an actual psychopath.
I look forward to reading more from author! Thank you so much for this ARC.

This book was really intense from start to finish and there were some plot twists I didn’t really see coming. I can’t recall any of the main characters being very likeable and that really worked for the book. The writing was very vivid and engaging. I consistently wanted to find out what was going to happen next and there wasn’t a chapter where I was bored or wanting to skip through. With that being said, there are a lot of trigger warnings I’d like to point out because there are a lot of very gory and possibly upsetting scenes for anyone sensitive to animal death, child death, violent/graphic and sexually explicit scenes. Overall, this is a fantastic book for anyone who likes the horror genre. Or if you have a bad relationship with your parents.