Victorian Psycho, by Virginia Feito, is a book for a very specific audience.

This is very much a character-driven novel, with very little in the way of plot. There *is* a reason behind some of what our psychotic governess does, but it’s revealed very late into the book and can leave the reader a little non-plussed.

The book is extraordinarily violent and our governess is very, very weird.

There is definitely some humor and snark peppered in between the extreme violence and it gives a bit of relief here and there.

I found that I did like the book, even as I ached for more plot, however you MUST be okay with the level of violence in the book.

• ARC via Publisher

I honestly didn't care for this book. I was expecting a slow burn horror but it comes out swinging with the FMC being needlessly cruel and apathetic. I'm not going to lie, I didn't make it all the way to the end. The prose was dull and I felt like there was no real backstory. It really just felt like violence for the sake of violence. If there had been some lead up or reasoning behind the violence then I may have been more interested but as it stands, it just felt flat and uninspired.

This one intrigued me from the beginning and I was surprised by how much I liked it. It was so good, gross, hilarious, different. All of that is right up my alley if I am being honest. I had a good time reading this and I could not put it down. I just kept flipping the pages. The characters were great, the writing was well done and the entire thing was just so good! I cannot wait to have a physical copy of this when it comes out!

This one surprised me! I was not expecting this to be this repulsive, hilarious, and disturbing all at the same time. Frankly, I could not put this one down. I had such a fun time with Victorian Psycho, I loved how deranged our main character was, it was all so bizarre and made me wonder how someone could come up with ideas like this! Victorian Psycho is a good one to go in blind and just enjoy the disturbing ride until the end! This will be one I revisit for sure.

This is an intriguing and unsettling read for fans of the horror genre, especially those who appreciate a significant dose of gore. The story revolves around Miss Notty, an unreliable narrator who adds an interesting layer to the narrative. One of the key characters, Winifred, who is a presumed psychopath.

While the story has a compelling premise, it feels somewhat underdeveloped in its execution. It reads more like an in-depth exploration of a single character's psyche rather than a fully developed novel. However, as a short story, it successfully creates an eerie and disturbing atmosphere that will appeal to readers drawn to the psychological complexities of disturbed and deranged minds.

One of the standout elements of the writing is the bizarre and almost grotesque depiction of the characters’ meals, which surprisingly adds to the unsettling tone of the narrative, perhaps even more so than some of the violent events in the story.

Overall, this tale offers a unique blend of strangeness and entertainment, providing just enough intrigue to keep readers engaged. It's definitely worth exploring for those interested in psychological horror and unreliable narrators.

Thank you to Netgalley and W. W. Norton & Company for the ARC!

What in the gothic horror.....?

Victorian Psycho is the tale of Winifred Notty, a newly hired governess of the Pounds family. She's not your normal governess, she's worse.

Full of macabre thoughts and desires, Miss Notty slowly starts acting on her feelings. Everyone comes to a culmination during Christmas, where the truth come out about Miss Notty and why she is with the Pounds.

While the style of writing is of the gothic nature, the story itself is hilarious. Half the time, I was wondering if this was really happening or was this all in Winnie's head. She's a nut, but I still loved her and her mean streak.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was such a fun read! I read the whole thing in one sitting and wanted more. I found myself gasping in disgust and laughing out loud. This will be a christmas classic for me in the future for sure.

2.5 ✨ I thoroughly enjoyed reading Mrs. March by Virginia Feito, so I was excited that I was approved to read this Arc, but unfortunately this was a miss for me. I found the writing style/format to be very clunky. Parts in the book dragged with no meaning that would make me lose interest.

Victorian Psycho had great bones but felt very underdeveloped.

Thank you NetGalley & Liveright for this ARC!

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito is a gothic tale about Winifred Notty a governess who recently takes a job at Ensor House. Winifred has many secrets and desires that she tries to keeps under control but, the more she stays at Ensor House the harder it is to do. Winifred's mother is dead and she found her letters that her father had written her. Her step father believes she is the spawn of the devil and tries everything in his power to get rid of the demon that lives inside of her. On Christmas Eve everything that she has been thinking about doing to the Pounds' and their guests come to frution. In the mist of the chaos Winifred finds that she has an unlikely alli in one of her wards. This was a fast paced read that will make you want more from Virginia Feito. I would like to think both NetGalley and Liveright for letting me read an advanced copy of this novel.

What an odd fever dream of a book. This one did remind me a lot of American psycho, in the way that it was so weird and random. This one was pretty grotesque and super disturbing things were brought up very nonchalantly. I found it hilarious at times and outlandish for most of it. Definitely read if you enjoy fever dream like books!

Holy moly. I downloaded Victorian Psycho on a whim, not having read any of Feito's other work. This book was fantastic. I wasn't expecting such a perfect mix of funny and dark. Because of the intro to this book, you knew where it was headed and what the MC would do at the end, but the ride there was great. A really well written book.

this is a book that grows on you- I initially had very “meh” feelings about this, however, as Fred’s spiral into madness ever grew, I got more and more immersed in the story.

Ms. feito can certainly write horror, and this was no exception! be wary though, this isn’t for people who aren’t fans of gore, or especially child gore. know your limits!

excited to read more from this author!

What a wildly entertaining ride! A Victorian take on American Psycho (which I have alas not read yet, but that didn't make this any less fun) exploring themes of gender, sexuality, and caste in a most horrific and hilarious way. So many fun twists and gory turns!

I devoured this. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Sadly DNFed this at 80%. This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and I was overjoyed when I was approved for the ARC. What a disappointment. I gave it as much of my mental energy as I was willing and finally decided reading this book is a punishment I do not deserve.

Unlike comps like Patrick Suskind's Perfume or AK Blakemore's The Glutton, this is historical magical realism done dirty. Where those books are rich, indulgent, fantastical portraits of the cruelty and barbarism of the distant past, and the presumably eponymous American Psycho is an almost too clever metaphor for the greed and corruption of the 1980s, Victorian Psycho is a painfully flat, desperately try hard flop. The writing is amateurish and clunky, the plot is whisper thin and hackneyed, and the "historic" elements seem like the author watched an episode or two of Downton Abbey and went "Enough research, let's write a book."

The writing is incredibly juvenile and at no point was I able to immerse myself in the story, as the text is rife with grammatical mistakes, nonsensical sentences, and random attempts at humor that fall desperately flat. It reads like a YA novel due to the immature language and vapid plot, but the rampant violence and sexual content made it inappropriate for anyone, I guess. It felt like instead of reveling in the grotesque, fascinating, often dismal world of the Victorians, the author was simply throwing in as many shocking elements as possible. The violence is simply for the sake of violence. In a romance novel, if the sex scenes are not adding to the story and telling something about the characters, they're just gratuitous. It was very much the case here with every single violent act, and there are a ton of them. The MC kills without motive, reason, or consequence. She doesn't even need to make more than a cursory effort at concealment. At one point she accidentally murders a baby, and then replaces it with a different baby she kidnaps, and this is never even noticed. If there are no consequences, there is no tension. If there are no consequences, why are there no consequences? Without consequence, there is genuinely no need for a story, and this book might as well just not exist.

I know this is probably nitpicking, but I genuinely do not understand why anyone sets out to write historical fiction without any effort at historical world building. It is right there for you. It should take little effort to read a couple books on the time period, modes of dress, household habits, and then pick and choose details to include, rather than inventing details that are simply inaccurate at best. No wealthy Victorian would be caught dead serving lobster to guests. It didn't come to be seen as a luxury dish until the 1920s, and was actually seen as poverty food. So using foods like brawn (offal meatloaf) and lobster to represent wealth and profligacy is simply incorrect (and would be clumsy and obvious otherwise, making this doubly annoying).

The plot itself is nonexistent. If you read the back cover, you already know the entirety of the story, including the ending. A governess shows up at a house and pretty rapidly murders all the residents (starting with the servants and eventually ends with a giant gory massacre of the family members) for either no motive at all or one that is so shallow and silly as to be barely worth the effort to describe it.

Frankly if I could avoid giving this a star rating I would. Most of the time if I am having this bad a time with a book I just give up, but I expected and wanted so much of this book I desperately tried to keep going. Don't waste your time.

This is the book you're looking for if you enjoy strange and off-putting women, fuck-nasty horror, and smart satire. (And honestly, the best horror novels always include all three.)

We follow our titular Victorian psycho, one Miss Winifred Notty, as she arrives at a new governess position and proceeds to shallowly cloak whatever is extremely wrong with her with a veil of civility, or what passes as such amidst the deeply misogynist zeitgeist that surrounds her.

I've been seeing read-alike comparisons to American Psycho, and while I've never read the book, it absolutely has similar energy to the 2000 film. You're deeply engaged with the disgusting stuff the narrator is thinking & doing, and then when something particularly awful happens, the Critical Reading Fairy Who Lives In Your Brain reminds you amidst your revulsion, Oh this is actually a really good satire.

That being said, I do think it's an effective satire & horror novel on its own, despite what I'm assuming is the marketing team choosing this title to refer back to American Psycho.

If you've read & enjoyed Tell Me I’m Worthless or Brainwyrms, I think this book will also be right up your alley. It's very smart and it's very disgusting, and I read it in all of two or three sittings. Highly recommend.

Thank you to W. W. Norton & Company and Liveright Publishing for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Holy sh*t this book was incredible. It was so bloody and gross it had me squirming. The last two paragraphs of page 148 were one of the gnarliest things I’ve ever read. It was so suspenseful it had me biting my nails. The satire and humor in the narrator’s thoughts had me laughing out loud. Huge props to the author for writing this in a perfect balance of old-timey language without it being hard to understand. And when it’s revealed how the narrator is connected to the rest of the characters, my jaw hath dropped 😱 The Twelve Days of Christmas chapter was one of the best chapters I’ve ever read in a book, and it was extra better reading it during the Christmas season. And although the narrator is supposed to be an anti-heroine, I freaking love her. Miss Notty is Notty indeed. I would recommend this to any horror fan.

Virginia Feito's Victorian Psycho promises a thrilling blend of psychological suspense and gothic atmosphere but falls short of its potential. The concept—a reimagining of a dark, twisted character within a Victorian setting—is intriguing, but the execution often feels uneven.

The narrative struggles with pacing, lingering too long on mundane details while rushing through key plot points. The protagonist, though meant to be unsettling, lacks depth, making it difficult to fully invest in their descent into madness. The prose, while occasionally evocative, can feel overwrought, detracting from the tension the story aims to build.

Despite these shortcomings, the novel has moments of genuine intrigue and a few striking visuals that hint at what it could have been. Unfortunately, these glimpses aren't enough to save the story from feeling disjointed and underwhelming. A disappointing two-star read that misses the mark on its ambitious premise.

Victorian Psycho takes readers on a chilling, satirical descent into the heart of Victorian hypocrisy, narrated by a character as unforgettable as she is unnerving. Winifred Notty, a gender-reversed Patrick Bateman from Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, opens the novella with an unexpected notion: everyone in Ensor House will be dead within three months. From this point onward, I was sold.

At just under 200 pages, this novella wastes no time plunging into the darkness of its anti-heroine. Miss Notty’s narration is razor-sharp—her sardonic humor and detached cruelty managed to transform even the most gruesome moments into scenes of hilarity. I was definitely guilty of laughing a few times when the context certainly didn't warrant that reaction. On a similar note, my favourite aspect of the story was undoubtedly Virginia Feito's prose. Feito's writing elevates Victorian Psycho beyond its gore shock value and takes it from a gory story to a horrific work of literature. It’s a story that horrifies, amuses, and lingers in equal measure, demanding the reader's attention at all moments. I don't think I was bored once while reading it!

That being said, I will admit I felt as if something were missing. I would have loved to see Victorian Psycho as a full-length novel, and to have Miss. Notty's character - and past - fully fleshed out. Regardless, this is a wickedly entertaining novella that will leave horror lovers reeling after every page.

Thank you to the publisher via NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito to review. All thoughts are my own and are not influenced by any third party.

Thank you to W. W. Norton & Company for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito is a brief novel about a Victorian-era governess come to Ensor House, but with a twist that takes it very far from the classic manor house story. Winnifred, our narrator, harbors “the Darkness,” an inner drive that causes her to be chaotically (and fantastically) violent and macabre, which unfolds over the course of her employment.

This book is gross, gory, and fun. The narrator is funny, tongue-in-cheek, and utterly unhinged. Whether talking about mutilating paintings, baby swapping, or petty theft, the author creates a compellingly unreliable narrator with a penchant for absurdist violence. I loved that the author didn’t fall into the unpleasant trap of “sophisticated psychopath” who is smarter, sleeker, and somehow more philosophically correct than everyone else. Winnifred is bad and she knows it, and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. She occasionally fumbles her crimes, and is overweight. She’s far from the elegant super psycho that has become a trope at this point. (And I loved that.)

If you can’t back an unabashedly terrible main character who spends her time being murderous, calculating, and a general nuisance, then this book will not be for you. But it’s zany and fun for fans of horror and over-the-top female narrators behaving badly.

Something I really enjoyed was how the story was stuffed with on-the-nose Victorian clichés. Fans of historical fiction or novels from the time will recognize all of the classic recurring elements: a gloomy but opulent manor house, spoiled little charges, a jealous wife, and a cast of stereotypically British upper-crust characters. Between the chilly housekeeper and the lecherous portrait artist the lampooning of the Victorian era is incredibly well done.

This novel is 4/5 stars for the right reader. If you love period pieces, horror novels, and a horrendously awful-yet still likes me narrator then this is a great choice. I did find that the novel was somewhat brief, and could have used a little more bulk in the middle before the very over the top finale.

(Trigger warnings: gore, blood, body mutilation, animal death, child death, frequent mentions of human and animal corpses, murder)

What. A. Trip!

While "Victorian Psycho" certainly takes parallels to "American Psycho", I'd describe it like "Mary Poppins" meets "A Clockwork Orange". Full of atmosphere, anxiety and dread, Virginia Feito has created a world that the reader is fully immersed in and can't look away from.

I was heavily invested in Winnifred's story and never knew what turns it was taking, despite the ending being clearly outlined early on in the story. I had an enjoyable time traversing her twisted world and can't wait to pick up a copy upon the release of "Victorian Psycho"

Thank you endlessly to NetGalley for granting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.