Book Review: A Predator and a Psychopath by Jay Kerk

As others have pointed out, this is not a book for the timid. The opening segment, in which we find Jason righteously indignant in a mental institution, was my favorite bit of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the way his tale was unfolding – or seemed to be. Then things got weird, and from there I struggled with the book.

I don’t mind back-and-forth narrators; they can be tricky to deliver in a way that feels organic in the swap and the way details are provided, but I appreciate that they are often necessary to give the appropriate depth to a story. The problem for me is that one of them – Jerry – is abhorrent and his sections of the book were very hard to read.

There’s violence and violent sex on an epic scale, and I feel like I read much of it with my eyes half-closed. Again, I appreciate that it was his personality and that it was clearly spelled out in the title that this wasn’t a book about puppies and kittens, but it still felt like some of it was provided for shock value rather than to advance the story – particularly since I felt like the story wound up ending rather than tying together in a satisfying or coherent way.

This one did NOT go where I thought it was going at all… That’s neither a good nor a bad thing, but it it definitely affected the way I felt when it ended and is a part of the rationale behind three stars. The blurbs and some of the foreshadowing led me to think this was going to be a mind-thriller with unreliable narrator(s). This isn’t how it played out, although it still seemed possible until the end, and it felt like deliberate (and unnecessary) misdirection. It threw me, and not in a good way.

All in all this was not the book for me. There are some clever and interesting sections but in the end I found it a bit frustrating…

My review copy was provided by the author.