Review: How Can I Help You

How Can I Help You by Laura Sims
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The trope used here in this book's twist is not particularly original. The seemingly innocent person gets dragged into evil's lure until corruption is complete, and the hero becomes the monster. I didn't have enough time to care about either of them, nor even to get to know them all that well.

The ex-nurse (Jane, or Margot) seems to be in the latter stages of her compulsion, where she is starting to devolve (if I may borrow an expression from TV profiling shows). Attempting to put her past behind her, and stop killing, she still yearns for a glimpse of the moment of death. Her end was inevitable. Patricia has different motivations, but is just starting out. It might have worked better for me if I'd been made to care about Patricia, but honestly I just never got there. The writer/reference librarian instead came across as a glaringly obvious self-insert.

Two POVs, using two audiobook readers, is a fairly new thing, but not quite so novel as to save it. I thought that Patricia's reader did not have a consistent Chicago accent, but apart from that had no quibbles. Margot's reader reminded me a bit of Jane Lynch.

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