The Groomer by Jon Athen

Title: The Groomer

Author: Jon Athen

Year Published: 2020

Link to Buy: Amazon

Genre: Fiction, Horror, Splatterpunk, Thriller, Crime

Summary:

Andrew McCarthy grows concerned for his family after he catches a young man, Zachary Denton, photographing his daughter, Grace McCarthy, and other children at a park. To his dismay, Zachary talks his way out of trouble when he’s confronted by the police. He hopes that’s the end of it. Then he finds Zachary at a diner and then at a grocery store. He knows their encounters aren't coincidences. And just as Andrew prepares to defend his family, Grace vanishes. As the police search stalls and the leads dry up, Andrew decides to take matters into his own hands. He starts by searching for sex offenders in the area and researching enhanced interrogation techniques... He convinces himself he’ll do anything to rescue his daughter, unaware of the pure evil he'll face in his journey. He’s willing to hurt—to torture—anyone to save his family.

Ten Sentence Review:

Although I knew going in that violence involving children in The Groomer would be difficult to read, and although I consider myself a pretty seasoned splatterpunk reader, I was almost unprepared for the scenes with the two little boys--you'll definitely want to proceed with caution, and probably won't want to make this your first-ever "extreme horror" read. 

I liked the main character Andrew's unlikely arc from suburban dad to psychopathic torture machine, and I truly believe that exact thing could happen to someone overnight after losing their child the way he did. The cops aren't moving quickly enough and he has access to the internet, so why not? The first two torture scenes are incredibly creative and had just the right amount of gore (read: a shitload), but they don't move the plot forward or get the reader invested in Andrew's cause as much as they would if the men being tortured were actually connected to his daughter's case in any way. As is, the beginning of his vigilantism is a random search for whatever offenders happen to live nearby, kicking down their doors, and demanding information on his child without a clue as to whether they're even involved. 

The final scene with the titular groomer was ALMOST everything I wanted it to be. This guy is exactly as pathetic as he should be and I hate him exactly as much as I'm supposed to, but as terrible as his punishment is, it still doesn't feel long or bad enough. I was actually surprised at how tame it is compared with what Andrew does to the other guys earlier in the book, especially after hearing the brutal details of what the groomer did to Andrew's daughter Grace. 

The epilogue first broke my heart with Andrew's son Max saying goodbye to his father and sister at the funeral (possibly leaving it open to a sequel where Max follows in his vigilante father's footsteps?), and then made me want to puke with the ~other~ thing that happens at the very end...with the jar... 

This book made me feel something during a very numb week, and for that, I appreciate it. 

3.5/5, rounded up to 4 for GR.

When I Am Through With You by Stephanie Kuehn

Title: When I Am Through With You

Author: Stephanie Kuehn

Year Published: 2017

Link to Buy: Amazon

Genre: Fiction, YA, Suspense, Thriller, Crime, Twist Ending

Summary:

Ben Gibson is many things, but he’s not sorry and he’s not a liar. He will tell you exactly how what started as a simple school camping trip in the mountains ended the way it did. About who lived and who died. About who killed and who had the best of intentions. And he’ll tell you about Rose. But he’s going to tell you in his own time. Because after what happened on that mountain, time is the one thing he has plenty of. Smart, dark, and twisty, When I Am Through With You will leave readers wondering what it really means to do the right thing.

Ten Sentence Review:

I know I enjoyed this book because I couldn’t put it down until the final page. It surprised me constantly, from the unexpected (and sometimes downright dumb) choices every single character made to the way the pace and sense of urgency changed with each act of the story. It begins as a slow introduction to the characters and the finer points of orienteering, transitions to a frenzied and violent thriller, and ends almost abruptly back in Ben’s prison cell. Although Ben’s character growth was very deliberately commented upon, I still appreciated that he was introspective enough to experience growth at all. Then again, he started and ended adolescence by shooting someone in the head, so maybe he didn’t grow as much as I initially thought.

My two favorite parts both came at almost the end of the book: Tomas confessing everything to Ben, and Lucy visiting Ben in prison as his psychiatrist. The importance of forgiveness was just as heavy-handed as Ben’s development, but both these scenes showed Ben that not everyone will abandon him the way his parents had.

And then, of course, we get to the biggest twist of all: the money never existed, the preacher and his brother had never been escaped convicts, and Rose lied which lead to Archie’s death (and possibly everyone else’s too). We’ll never know Rose’s reason for lying about the money because Ben took it upon himself to end her suffering minutes before the rescue team arrived, but I’d be willing to bet they were more complicated than anything Ben assumed they were. He’s a little boy who would rather die than make decisions, who is suffering from chronic migraines and probably emotionally stuck at the age of his original trauma and injury, and then he finally decides to kill the girl to whom he’s said countless times he’s grateful for deciding everything since they started dating.

3.5/5, rounded down to 3/5 for GR.