Book Review | Maeve Fly

I’ve been gnashing at the bits for more unhinged female serial killer books, so as soon as I saw the blurb for Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede, I wanted to love it so badly.

The opening hook was fantastic and Maeve, our narrator, adamantly asserts that this is her story.

Here is the truth, the one that so few of us know:

You do not need a moral and noble story to do what you want. You do not first need to be a victim to become a monster. Your loved ones need not be taken from you so that you might drink and brutalize and chase the sublime. Life is fleeting and meaningless and crying to be seized from behind and fucked into obscurity.

This is my story, and you cannot control it. No more than you can the ever-lower dangle of your sex or the warming of this fat, lazy prison rock floating in the semen-splotched dark.

And yet, the rest of the story does not hold up to its initial promise and proceeds to borrow heavily from other fictional serial killers to the point that Maeve blatantly reenacts the iconic rat scene from American Psycho.

For me, it would at least make more sense for Maeve to have drawn more inspiration from her beloved grandmother instead of giving us off-brand, Party City Patrick Bateman.

Really, it was Maeve’s co-dependent relationship with her grandmother that was the most believable and compelling aspect of the book for me. Maeve has to care for her terminally ill grandmother as she struggles to come with terms with her looming death since she is the only one who understands her murderous impulses.

That part was great!

It was the rest of the story that felt half-baked and could have been fleshed out more. For instance, Maeve has a lackluster fling with her best friend’s brother who she has zero chemistry or connection with, so the resulting climax of their relationship arc didn’t have the emotional pay off that it could have had.

Ultimately, Maeve never succeeds in making this story her own and what we’re left with instead is wasted potential.

Thank you, NetGalley and Tor Nightfire, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Details:

Publication Date : June 6, 2023

Publisher : Tor Nightfire

ISBN: 1250857856

Pages : 288

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