My Men by Victoria Kielland

​This sounded great. The description alone drew me in completely. I don’t actually care for true crime, but serial killers are undeniably interesting from psychological perspective. Especially, the unusual ones. Especially, female ones.
I’ve never heard of Belle Gunness, not the woman, not the mystery. A Norwegian immigrant who became America’s first serial killer and by all accounts racked up a terrifyingly impressive body count.
The story is fascinating, the book should have been riveting. And yet, it chose a different path. Specifically, a purely narrative, all-in-the-mind, almost stream of consciousness like style that never varies until the last page. A style that often works with short stories but stretched over 200 pages becomes rather…dense, monotonous, difficult to enjoy. Unless you really want to spend that much time in Belle’s lovelorn, affection-hungry, careening straight into madness mind.
Yes, there is a hypnotic quality to this style of writing, it’s elegant and literary, and it’s easy to see what the author was going for, but the overall result just didn’t work for me. Seems like a historical figure as singular and enigmatic (Belle was never found) deserves a more exciting, engaging story. But at least it had the decency to be short and go by quickly. Thanks Netgalley.