The Butcher – Jennifer Hillier

So, I should preface this by saying this is my first Hillier novel. I was unfamiliar with her until I saw this on Instagram (back a few years ago when I had the app) and just now got around to reading it and I have so many thoughts.

I suppose I'll start with what I liked because there's not a ton:

• The plot. The plot itself is interesting enough. I finished this in under a week, which is rare for me these days (short attention span and all that). I'm a pretty avid reader, but for a 320-odd page book, it reads very quickly and chapters are quite short.
• Sam Marquez. She's easily the best character in the novel. Her motivation is pretty compelling. That's it.

My issues: There is a warning at the front, in the editor's note, that the book contains graphic depictions of violence and misogynistic language. What I didn't realize was how over the top this all would be. Almost every character, including Sam, thinks and talks about women in the most absurd and objectifying ways. It makes sense that Ed would talk about women this way, he's a serial killer for crying out loud. But for Sam to frequently remark on womens' appearances throughout the novel, for her to call women "slut" and stare at their bodies, felt entirely out of place. Other female characters did this as well (Detective Sanchez's wife calls her son's girlfriend "slutty." THIS IS A CHILD WE'RE TALKING ABOUT). So much of the descriptions of the women throughout the novel are tainted with this incredibly sexist language to the point where it became comical at times. Hearing Ed describe women's bodies, his machismo and stereotypical "manliness," it was just too much, even for a deranged killer.

The characters are another huge issue for me here. All but two are redeemable and somewhat compelling (Sam and Robert Sanchez, the detective). Everyone else here sucks so bad. Matt, who is the WORST boyfriend ever, was so egregious to me, and his treatment of Sam and his logic almost made me stop reading at several points. What do you mean you don't want your beautiful, smart, talented gf to move into your house with you? What's wrong with this man? Throughout, there are moments where Hillier really tries to suggest there isn't much a difference between Matt and Ed, their lineage is shared, mind you, but there isn't enough there, fleshed out, outside of a few particularly awful things Matt does and thinks, that really solidify that. Sure, he's got a temper, but he never has a desire to kill anyone like Ed, yet the novel keeps insisting that he somehow does? Now, he does continuously do terrible things to everybody around him, especially Sam, but still.

Can we all agree to just stop describing women's bodies in fiction? From male author I would expect this level of objectification, but from a woman?! Not at all. It's wild to me. It's like Hillier scrolled through some teen guy's fantasy of what's "hot" about women and pulled all the details. There's no need to describe the size of a woman's chest when we're reading Sam's perspective. She's not once set up to be that kind of character, so reading her thinking about a woman's hips or bust feels entirely out of place. For Matt and Ed, maybe it makes more sense, but for Sam, the most important, empowered woman in this novel? No. It felt like Hillier got off on describing women as crudely as possible, which is strange.

The prose is also delightfully bad here as well. There were so many eye-rolling moments as I was reading. Actual quote from the novel: "What do my kids say? FML. F*** my life." Cringe. The prologue sort of lulls you in with a false premise. The writing is decent there, nothing's too overly-explanation-y, but immediately in the first chapter we're bombarded with over-explanation-y dialogue from characters whose thoughts are always blunt and crude. There's never any time for reader interpretation. Think one thing and Hillier is spelling it out exactly in too much detail on the following page. What happened to show don't tell? Hillier, it appears, has this tendency to add way too much to her dialogue tags. There's no need to explain the way with which a character shrugged, smiled, or touched someone's arm. Sometimes, a simple "he said" is all that's needed. I feel that this novel could have done with a bit more editing, to be honest. When I read, "He shrugged good-naturedly" I want to die. "Good-naturedly?" Are we serious?! This isn't her first novel, either. Far from it. For such an experienced author, I was expecting so much more but was utterly disappointed with how this novel was written.

As I said, the plot was literally the only thing that kept me reading, and thank goodness this book wasn't any longer or I might not have finished. I'm not sure if others have a similar opinion as I do, but I'd love to hear what people have to say about Hillier and this novel specifically. I don't think I'll be reading anything else of hers because the prose here is just so bad, I simply can't tolerate it again.