Hannah has just been ghosted by a member of a punk rock band. All of her friends are getting married or are in committed relationships and no longer have time for her, and she's not particularly close to her family. She joins a forum about these women who are found dead in a ravine in Atlanta and gets caught up in finding who the killer is. When a young, handsome lawyer, William, is arrested as the killer, she writes him a letter. Soon, she finds herself pouring out on paper everything that is going wrong in her life. Then he writes back, and she starts to fall for him, and he does with her. He is the only one who understands and listens to her. She loses her job because she spends so much time at work on the forum and writing William letters. She decides to move out of her apartment in Minnesota and go to Atlanta to watch the trial.
When she arrives, she makes friends with two other women, one who believes he is innocent and one who believes he is guilty, but still sexy. Williams's father has the most prestigious law firm in Atlanta, and he hires the best lawyers for him. William has connections to all four women, and Hannah finds it a turn-on that he is a serial killer. She goes from being curious to becoming obsessed and one of "those women". But what will she do when he is found not guilty and is set free? Will he come after her next, and will she let him kill her?
This book is a bit sad, but relatable. Hannah loses everyone around her, and this makes her vulnerable to the wrong guy who says the right things. One line in this thrilling page-turner is: "I don't really want to die; I wanted to clarify: I just don't know how to continue to live." It describes where Hannah's head is in this book. This novel shows how "those women" are created. They are women who need love and attention and are so desperate for it that they don't care where it comes from. The world is filled with Hannahs who are desperate for love and attention and someone to consider them beautiful. This is Coryell's first novel, published in 2024. She has other novels out that I look forward to reading.
Quotes
That's the catch of martyrdom on social media. First they lament your death, and then they count all the reasons why you deserve to die.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 4)
Talking with men was more like reading a script than confessing from the heart.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 8-9)
Before long, I was back on the dating apps and talking to a new guy who was promising in his mediocrity. He wasn't especially attractive, but he was gainfully employed, and sometimes that was enough.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 32)
Sometimes the deepest betrayals were things that women did to one another.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 37)
Every story about a man and a woman has the potential of ending in death no matter how innocuous the beginning, but Emma never saw him again.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 42)
It seemed symbolic in the way that all tiny tragedies seem symbolic when a larger bad thing is occuring.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 90)
One of the greater injustices of having a body was how much it physically hurt to be sad.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 90)
Boyfriends that were serial killers were still boyfriends.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 91)
As much as I was grateful that she didn't ask any further questions, it wounded me that she hadn't seen through my easily provided lies. A mother should have been able to sense her daughter was traveling across the country to see the serial killer that she was in a relationship with.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 94-5)
I always resented how cautiously I lived my life. Becoming an English major shouldn't be the bravest thing that anyone has ever done.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 101)
People liked to suggest that if only young people didn't buy fancy beverages, then maybe they would have more money in savings, a suggestion that only made my plain coffee more bitter.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 175)
They think that they're like some secondary arm of the courts now. There's the judge, the jury, and the podcast hosts.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 191)
The future was a gangplank on a ship at the end of the world.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 193)
The best thing to do was to go back to Minnesota and find a nice, boring man. The type of person who got up in the morning, made coffee, shoveled the walk in the wintertime, and whose deepest secret was that he occasionally watched some porn. There were a lot of people who lived that life who were obstinately happy. Sure, there wasn't the thrilling tickle in their stomachs every time they thought about their love, but who needed that when they had someone willing to put ingredients in the Crock-Pot before work?
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 206)
Algorithms were proof that there was more to love than simply predicting what someone wanted.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 208)
In times of tragedy, there were always some people who immediately turned to arts and crafts.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 210)
The vision was romantic. The way that Bella in Twilight spent the entirety of the second book trying to throw herself off cliffs for the merest hint of Edward. It was possible that I had no idea what love was.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 218)
I don't really want to die; I wanted to clarify: I just don't know how to continue to live.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 224)
Men didn't like women who were a mess. Men wanted women to be calm and stoic no matter the chaos that they wrecked upon their lives.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 224)
A mirage of a man in the desert of my love life.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 224)
The cruelty of the internet is that there is no lock. Even posts intended to be private can be found if someone wants to see them enough. It's where people reveal their most secret of selves right out in the open.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 210)
I'd since realized that a smile could be used as a weapon and friendliness used to cover underlying anger.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 291)
The thing that everyone forgot when they talked about killing two birds with one stone is that the birds had to die.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 301)
It's easy to cross a big line once you start crossing little ones.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 316)
All the moments I have loved myself must have been through someone else's gaze.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 319)
There's a spell that comes over us in our youth. We chase after things that we know aren't good for us just so we can say that we did it. No one wants a healthy relationship when they're nineteen. They only want passion.
Tasha Coryell (Love Letters To A Serial Killer, p 334)
Link to ThriftBooks: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/love-letters-to-a-serial-killer/51003005/?resultid=db354cc9-8dbe-47b1-965d-4786282710d9#edition=69952489&idiq=73695688
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