When The Prey Becomes the Predator: The Perfect Victim by David Sodergren

Information:

• Goodreads: 3.96 out of 594 Ratings
• Age Range: Adult
• Genre: Horror, Thriller
• Series: None

Summary:

Katy Ketcher has been dubbed the ‘perfect’ victim. She’s young, which means she’s easily manageable. Her dad, the second biggest producer in Hollywood, is filthy rich, meaning he will pay whatever the kidnappers’ little hears desire in order to get his precious girl back. She even walks home from school all on her lonesome. Easy to catch. Easy to keep. Easy peasy payday. That’s exactly what Bax, Corvo, Emma, and Varg all think. And that’s exactly what they do. But there’s a few things wrong: first, they did not expect to have to snatch her best friend, Jill. They did not expect Varg’s pedophilic and murderous tendencies to make their goal nearly impossible. And they did not expect Katy to be an unhinged girl dead-set on revenge. What do you do when the girl who was supposed to be easy money cares more about killing you than she does about being saved?

As per usual, look into the trigger warnings, such as talk of rape of a minor (I swear, he gets what’s coming for that one), murder, gore, body horror

Review

This book is so good. It’s short and sweet; I don’t typically like shorter stories. But this format tends to work for me for survival horror. You’re immediately thrown into the action, with Bax, Corvo, and Emma taking Jill and Katy. You don’t get time to breathe. It’s just go, go, go in the best way. The book is full on plot driven, as I don’t personally think there’s enough time or space for it to be mostly character driven. Luckily, the plot is so great and fun and interesting that it keeps the reader invested all the way through and prose only adds to this. Sodergren does not have beautiful writing. His writing doesn’t slow down. It’s as quick and ready to sprint as the plot is.

The characters are all horrible people. Bax is an egotistical wannabe in a constant power struggle with everyone else in the group except Corvo. He started off not wanting anyone to die or get hurt, yet consciously hired someone who he knew was a pedophilic asshole and had a thing for torture. Not really a great guy to have in your team when your whole plan revolves around this girl making it back to her dad in one piece. Emma knows Bax wants to sleep with her and uses that to her advantage. She, too, has a thing for killing people and doesn’t really care about Katy in the slightest. Varg is disgusting. Corvo is a giant and also an idiot. He’s the sweeter of the bunch, without really wanting the girls to get hurt. But he also isn’t really gonna stand up for them. Jill and Katy are the stereotypical rich 16 year olds. Commenting on one another’s bodies (long neck and fat ass) instead of focusing solely on surviving. But, this just add to how fun the book is. Sodergren’s way of writing men makes seeing them be slaughtered feel so rewarding. I swear, I have not read a single man this guy wrote be an actual good guy. Sodergren gets it. But that doesn’t mean the girls are great either. They’re rude. They’re annoying. They are often very angry before the killing even starts. And yet, you root for them the entire time.

The way Katy becomes more fixated on revenge than on her own rescue and safety is so interesting and fun to watch. She slowly begins to simply not give a shit. Yeah, she does want to make it out alive. But that’s an added bonus of her plan of killing every single one of the people who took her and hurt her. Starting with Varg. And his death scene was one of my favorites. Though, I can’t gloss over the scene where one of the men’s literal balls falls out. The gore is great. The book kept me invested all the way through. It was interesting, it was intense, and it was fun. In such a strange way, I find a lot of Sodergen’s books weirdly nostalgic. They remind of me the horror/slashers of the early 2000’s that I watched as a kid (we don’t have to question why I was watching them so young, leave me alone). I’ve loved and enjoyed every single one.

Have you read David Sodergren yet? If horror is your thing, I think he’s definitely worth giving a shot and I’d love to know what you think as you go!