The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyn

I just want to point one critical suggestion from a reader, I hate Prologues. They remove me from almost every single thing I want to read. Had Dobyn made his Prologue the first chapter instead, I would have had a much easier time understanding the whopping 466 pages that followed. It also would have made more sense to the actual first chapter reverting to a time in the past. I get why he did it. I can see the logical idea he put behind it now that it is over. But, just make that Prologue chapter one and call it a damn day. Up until the end, I was wondering why the hell the prologue mattered or what it even added to this novel because we have merely spent 420 pages following a town full of characters. Needless to say, it all comes together at the end, but START the meat of the book there and ax the idea of a damn Prologue PLEASE.

Three dead girls sitting straight tied to chairs in an attic missing their left hands. An attic that I assumed was an ACTUAL church from the title of this piece. I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on in Part One (first 15 chapters) of the novel or why any of it matters with the Prologue we were given at the start. Then I started wondering, what if the narrator is the psycho? How does he even fit in this? I spent most of my time reading with these two questions in my head. In fact, the narration was extremely confusing because we were told by our narrator, who was a townsperson. BUT, it often came off as omniscient. I had to continually remind myself this is a guy who lives there and teaches High Schoolers BIO. So, with that Prologue ax, fix the narration too, Mr. Dobyn.

I was not enjoying reading this, and it's not like it took an hour or two of my time. This novel was 466 pages in length. My Kindle estimated it as about a 9-hour read. It took me a whole week because of how unsatisfying and confusing the point of the beef the novel held. I had to dedicate the last two days entierly (1/26-1/28) to stay on top of the work since mostly every book in this course is lengthy, and I work nine hours every day. Mr. Dobyn, your novel had me drawn in at some points but bored me to death in most. The last sixty pages kept me for the thirty minutes it took to go through. Imagine if ALL 466 pages were as good? I could've breezed through this.

The title caught my attention when the list was given out. A very unique and grasping one. I REALLY looked forward to this work until I got into it. Besides the point, my rant as a reader is over here. I'll actually get into the Psycho aspect now. It is shorter than most of what I say, but that is the course.

SO many people could have been the culprit. This is maybe the first book to stump me on who it was abducting these girls. I was not expecting it to be Donald, even in the SLIGHTEST. So, that was well done. Typically, a little less than halfway through a novel, I can guess how it ends and be correct. Granted, this monster confused me for the majority of it because I was SO focused on the narrator and his point in it all. Then the last few chapters all made sense. Everything fell together. The narrator was exciting but innocent. A bystander that reminds himself he cannot have illicit affairs with young students and that capitalizing on the wild fantasies is not normal. He told us of that one person we would all gladly kill can only remain a thought. But, we all HAVE those thoughts. Maybe not precisely murder, but other ones that are not "acceptable."

We saw Donald as a psycho ONLY through the crimes and what events occurred, such as dropping off the clothes or fake hands and notes. We hardly saw Donald past his profession, which is accurate. You always hear stories of it being "the last person expected." That is true. Most of the time, it is the last person you expect. Compared to American Psycho, where we followed Bateman, here we observe another person unconnected to the actual crimes being committed. It worked great in the way Psycho did. We saw what everyone else saw. That is what kept the thriller aspect to it. I can only imagine how horrible it could have gotten had we followed this pedophile throughout instead of someone outside of that mind. There is not much else I can say on the matter, aside from this. We watched as things unfolded instead of being there. I don't think I would have wanted to be there if I had the choice either. As much as I love gore and all things disturbing and horrifying, I would never want to read this from Donald Malloy's POV. I don't want to know any more about him than I was finally given: his attic full of dead girls and his ideas of their impurities.

I do not want to touch too much on other characters such as Aaron, Barry, Hark, Hark's followers, or any of the other characters. They were problems in their own ways, but they weren't the psycho, even as much as the backstory makes us wonder what the HELL with them, they almost seem so pointless now that I finished the work. These "do-gooders" and "the cops follow procedures, so let us take things in our own hands" seemed too real as well. They all had their very nitpick and tight reasons for being needed, but I don't think they matter for this post beyond that.

We built behind this idea of some 'professional man,' which was almost every single person involved here. No hints helped me. Then Aaron was finally told the name, scene break, and a whole different scenario was discussed. Did that piss me off? Absolutely. My Kindle note for the page is, "WHY" at the break. As much at that point, as I wanted it to be over to move on to the next, I feel like Dobyn couldn't cut anything out. I think he did have exactly what was needed, it was the organization and execution of including the vast amount that threw me to the curb.