Normal - Graeme Cameron

**** Betrayed by the ending

The story of this novel is original and full of twists. It somehow reminds me the Dexter series, but the British touch is evident in the way of thinking, talking, and acting of the main character (but also of the others) ... and in the impressive number of teas being prepared!
The look and the name of the protagonist are never mentioned in the text, leaving the reader free to imagine him as they prefer. Despite the fact that you are dealing with a person who kills in cold blood to satisfy his own impulses, the author makes you identify so much in his mind that, after the initial estrangement, you end up being a fan of his, especially when he meets Rachel and loses control of his distorted world due to the fact that he has fallen in love.
For 90% of the book, the author literally laughs at the adventures of a serial killer and then eventually everything collapses. The author covers himself, making the character say that fairies have happy endings, but things are different in real life. Oh no! I wasn’t reading a real-life report, but fiction. In real life I would never sympathise with a serial killer and laugh of his crimes. And therefore, for consistency, I was expecting the same surreal look and a conclusion that did not fall into “normality”, but that, with another twist that I could never foresee, left me with a smile. Instead, the story becomes melodramatic and comes to a foreseeable ending in a realistic context, an ending I feared would come since when I read the book description and decided to read it anyway, yet I was hoping to be wrong.
Too bad, because the author didn’t want to or didn’t know how to dare and unfortunately eventually the appreciation of a book by the reader depends precisely on the fact that they find an ending worthy of the rest of the story.
I gave it four stars, although I didn’t like the ending, because it kept me glued to the e-reader until I finished it, because it made me laugh so much, because it is really well written and the author’s style is really engaging, and because I loved the protagonist madly until the end.


Normal on Amazon.

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