Darkly Dreaming Dexter: Review

Since exams have finished I’ve had a lot more time to read, and catch up on all the Netflix shows I’ve wanted to watch! Is it just me or is watching Netflix without the imminent pressure of studying/exams just not as good? Same goes for reading, I had started a reading list for this summer but as soon as I was finished with school I kind of didn’t know what to do with myself so I ended up doing a whole bunch of…. nothing.

I did however manage to read Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Usually I don’t pick up books based on hype, but I really needed to read something to nudge me back into me back into my reading mood and I loveeee a good crime thriller.

 

Title: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Author: Jeff Lindsay

Length: 288

Source: Purchased.

Honestly I had never watched the TV series and knew absolutely nothing about this going in apart from the fact that it had a highly successful TV adaptation! I think pretty much everyone knows what this is about but for the people who don’t here’s a short synopsis below:

Meet Dexter Morgan, a polite wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He’s a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likeable: he only kills bad people. And his job as a blood splatter expert for the Miami police department puts him in the perfect position to identify his victims. But when a series of brutal murders bearing a striking similarity to his own style start turning up, Dexter is caught between being flattered and being frightened—of himself or some other fiend.

Out of all the crime thrillers I’ve read this stood out for multiple reasons:

Reading 234972097 (not an exact number plz don’t quote me on this :)) crime novels I’d come across my fair share of self-righteous series killers, but somehow it all felt very artificial. Whilst reading I’d never really bought into it.  But whilst reading his rationality for why he does what he does I found myself several times almost falling for his justificationss?? Let’s just say I’m grateful that this book was only around 300 pages!

Another overused connection is that the main character had gone through something traumatic when they were younger which inevitable lead them down this path. It was my first time reading about a character who knew he had a traumatic past but doesn’t quite remember what it was. It motivates who he is as a human being and was such a catastrophic event that it left him unable to feel ‘normal’ human emotions yet he still didn’t know what the cause of this was. I really liked that this was revealed towards the beginning of the book,  at this point even though I wasn’t really invested in him as a character I knew I had to stay until the end to at least find what had happened to him.

Wowww it’s really been a while since I’ve written a review I don’t even know how to wrap this shambolic one up… All in all I would recommend this for people who don’t usually pick up crime/thriller reads , it has a great writing style, psycho but relatable main character and is less than 300 pages. Will I carry on reading the rest of the series? Probably not, I’m quite satisfied with the ending of this but if anyones read more from this series let me know what you thought in the comments!