I never would have picked this on my own – it was a book club choice. On the other hand, it definitely wasn’t boring and it was short. Hungerstone was the other horror novel set in 19th century England I read in October, and I will say as bonkers as Victorian Psycho, I also preferred it because it just kept me engaged – like a train wreck(Hungerstone was just kind of boring).
As much as the narrator’s actions might make you cringe, there’s also just this dark humor and absurdity to it – like a scene where she basically goes, “oh no, not again.” In ways, the governess is like if you took ten people, took their most random and bizarre intrusive thoughts and had her act on every single one of them, no matter how dark or gross or weird. And yet there is a method and a reason behind some of her madness.
There is a bit of a reveal later in the novel about some of her motivations but I wouldn’t call it a twist because the clues were there and the author wasn’t trying to hide it from us. She also raises a bit of a nature vs nurture question based on the glimpses we get of the governess’s past but ultimately that’s not the point of the story and one could just as easily ask, does it matter?
So would I recommend this? It’s certainly not like anything I have read before but it definitely depends on the reader (for example, I would never recommend this to either of my parents). I also likely won’t read another novel by this author and yet, I think others should experience what I just read. It feels like a demented fever dream.