The Killer In Me by Margot Harrison : ARC Book Review

Title: The Killer In Me
Author: Margot Harrison
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion  
Published Date: July 12th 2016
Genre: YA, Thriller, Horror, Mystery
Page Count: 368 pages  
Format: Kindle

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 
Seventeen-year-old Nina Barrows knows all about the Thief. She’s intimately familiar with his hunting methods: how he stalks and kills at random, how he disposes of his victims’ bodies in an abandoned mine in the deepest, most desolate part of a desert.

Now, for the first time, Nina has the chance to do something about the serial killer that no one else knows exists. With the help of her former best friend, Warren, she tracks the Thief two thousand miles, to his home turf—the deserts of New Mexico.

But the man she meets there seems nothing like the brutal sociopath with whom she’s had a disturbing connection her whole life. To anyone else, Dylan Shadwell is exactly what he appears to be: a young veteran committed to his girlfriend and her young daughter. As Nina spends more time with him, she begins to doubt the truth she once held as certain: Dylan Shadwell is the Thief. She even starts to wonder . . . what if there is no Thief?

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

 My Review:

"A girl who sees murders in her dreams, murders that happen in real life"

This is a story told in duel perspectives by two characters Nina and Warren.

Nina was adopted by her mom at ten months old and soon thereafter they moved to Vermont where they have lived a normal life. Except for the part where Nina has seen somebody else in her dreams since she was little. Things were pretty normal in her dreams, but one night things turned sinister and she has never been the same since. This is when she started calling the person in her dreams the Thief because of what he did to others that was so calculated and covered that he would never get caught.

Then we have Warren who was Nina’s childhood best friend, but they grew apart when Nina started acting different.

"I'll do my best to protect Nina from her obsession, her nightmares, but I won't be pulled in."

With Warren’s help Nina is able to start feeling better about what she’s seen and thinks that maybe she isn’t so crazy after all. Not only do these two find out where the thief lives. Things really start to take a turn though when they go on a road trip and Nina starts forming a plan on how she plans to deal with this thief and to stop her dreams forever. It sounded so simple to do, until she learns how she knows the thief and how he just might not be as sinister as her dreams make him seem.

"The key is to pretend to see him the way he sees himself. Not a monster, but a boyfriend, a son, a brother who just happens to kill strangers now and then."

This story had me on the edge of my seat throughout the whole thing, not only did it keep me up at night because of how creepy it was, but I even had to take a bit of a break from it for a few days and then come back from it because of how creeped out I got.  The best way I can think of describing this book is do you remember the show Medium where Patricia Arquette was the main star who would see things happen to people in her dreams? This was like that except think more of when the daughter started having the same types of dreams, and how scary it was for her to see those things.  It was like that, except instead of it being multiple people it’s just one person who Nina has always seen for as long as she can remember. 

"The boy's inner voice isn't snarky or snide. It's flat, assessing the terrain like he’s a soldier on a mission."

This person she has seen change for a little boy, to a man, she seen him fight in a war and make it home safely and then one day he kills someone and covers it up. Then it happens again and again, each one cautious so he’s never caught. But then you also seem him with his family and it’s hard to believe that he could ever do those things. 

As for the friendship between Warren and Nina, I loved it. Warren thought Nina needed help, but the closer they got to each other again he realized that she wasn’t crazy or making things up. That this was something that was real and if they could find a way to stop the thief, Nina would get a good sleep and no one else would die at the hands of the thief.

If you want a YA thriller that will keep you wanting to know what happened, while scaring you then this is the book for you.  

"Letters that will uncover corpses while leaving their killer an enduring mystery for crime hounds to speculate about on message boards until one day he's forgotten"

Thank you to Netgalley and Disney-Hyperion for an e-Arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.