John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it.
He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.
He’s obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn’t want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation.
Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there’s something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat---and to appreciate what that difference means.
Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can’t control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.
Dan Wells’s debut novel is the first volume of a trilogy that will keep you awake and then haunt your dreams.
I Am Not A Serial Killer (John Cleaver)
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The teenage (and innocent) John Wayne Cleaver swears he is not the serial killer that has emerged in his small town--despite his grisly name and a series of unpleasant and eerie similarities. His fascination with the killer leads him to launch his own investigation of sorts-- one that leads him to the identity of the murderer. There are shades of Jeff Lindsay's darkly comic Dexter series, but John Allen Nelson is miscast. His female voices are grating caricatures, and he cannot become the protagonist--his voice is too deep, assured, and assertive even when the text suggests otherwise. A Tor hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 1).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Review
“This dazzling, un-put-downable debut novel proves beyond a doubt that Dan Wells has the gift. His teenage protagonist is as chilling as he is endearing. More John Wayne Cleaver, please.”---F. Paul Wilson, New York Times bestselling author
“The beauty of the prose, mixed with the depth of characterization, gives the haunting, first person narrative a human touch. Regardless of your age or your genre preferences, you will find this story both profound and enthralling.”---Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author
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More About the Author
Dan Wells is the author of several novels for adults, including I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER, MR. MONSTER, and I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU. PARTIALS is his first book for young adults. He lives in Utah with his wife and children. You can visit him online at www.fearfulsymmetry.net
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
50 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
I am Not a Serial Killer is a great read, the type of genre the book is changes half way through, I don't want to give away which genre it switches to as that would be giving away a substantial part of the plot. Admittedly, at first I thought oh no, the author has obviously just run out of ideas on how to keep the story going but as I read on those thoughts were proved wrong, the change of genre works really, really well.
Basic plot of I Am Not a Serial Killer has John Cleaver having recently finished primary school entering high school for the first time in the small town of Clayton. John whose father bailed years ago and whose mother's parental skills are so bad they drove his sister out of the family home, is not popular at all in school. A target for bullies he hangs around with Max, an equally unpopular kid, not because he enjoys his friendship, but because appearing to have conversations with someone else (Max is a talker) will make the other kids and teachers not notice just how different he is. You see John is always trying to keep the monster behind the wall. The monster is the fact that John is a sociopath who has a list of rules he makes himself follow so as not to start on his natural calling as a serial killer. His mother and aunt run the local mortuary and he is fascinated by dead bodies, since it is the only place he seems to be able to communicate with this mother at all, he is always assisting with the preparation of the town's bodies. He has read every detail of famous serial killers' sprees, so when a murder victim is slashed open in the town laundromat and their organs piled up beside them, John knows straight away this is no one off. John can't help but to become obsessed with profiling this killer and trying to catch him in the act of the kill to study his methods up close.
A very good and unique storyline and a very definitely unique character with John Cleaver. If you liked the learning about behind the scenes mortuary parts of the novel also check out Weepin' Willie by Richard Grayson.
Basic plot of I Am Not a Serial Killer has John Cleaver having recently finished primary school entering high school for the first time in the small town of Clayton. John whose father bailed years ago and whose mother's parental skills are so bad they drove his sister out of the family home, is not popular at all in school. A target for bullies he hangs around with Max, an equally unpopular kid, not because he enjoys his friendship, but because appearing to have conversations with someone else (Max is a talker) will make the other kids and teachers not notice just how different he is. You see John is always trying to keep the monster behind the wall. The monster is the fact that John is a sociopath who has a list of rules he makes himself follow so as not to start on his natural calling as a serial killer. His mother and aunt run the local mortuary and he is fascinated by dead bodies, since it is the only place he seems to be able to communicate with this mother at all, he is always assisting with the preparation of the town's bodies. He has read every detail of famous serial killers' sprees, so when a murder victim is slashed open in the town laundromat and their organs piled up beside them, John knows straight away this is no one off. John can't help but to become obsessed with profiling this killer and trying to catch him in the act of the kill to study his methods up close.
A very good and unique storyline and a very definitely unique character with John Cleaver. If you liked the learning about behind the scenes mortuary parts of the novel also check out Weepin' Willie by Richard Grayson.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
By J. Brown
Format:Hardcover
Short version: I almost didn't read this book, but I'm so happy I did.
Long version. You can scare the crap out of me (Aracnaphobia), and I will love you forever. You can make me bite my nails in terrible suspense (Wait Until Dark, The Village) or throw supernatural at me (Poltergeist) and I will sing with praise. But the moment you do gruesome, the moment you start showing me entrails and organs, my discomfort level shoots through the roof.
And this is why I would not have finished I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Well's if I had just picked it up off a shelf-because the main character is the son of a woman who owns a mortuary. We get to see him help process a mutilated body very early in the book, pumping fluids in etc., and Wells knows his craft so I was THERE. I'm sure it's not too gruesome for some, but I just have issues with organs. I don't know why. I also have an issue with clowns.
Clowns are, by far, the scariest things around. And this is not because I read the book IT by Stephen King as a wee lad because I didn't. It's because they're painted vessels of evil. End of story. They're perfect examples of the freakazoids that lurk in the uncanny valley.
Anyway, I'd heard Wells read a portion of this book that had all of us in the room crying because we were laughing so hard. So I read on, telling myself I had to at least get to that part. And I am so very happy I did.
I Am Not A Serial Killer is young adult story about a good-hearted teen named John Cleaver who is a sociopath with all the traits shared by serial killers. John's in counseling, but more importantly, he is convinced he can prevent himself from becoming a serial killer by keeping rules he's made for himself like not watching people for too long and complimenting someone when they make him angry. Such rules, he hopes, will keep him from feeding compulsions he won't be able to resist. The problem is a real serial killer has come to town (but unlike any you've seen before). And John may be the only one who can stop him. Will he let go of his rules to save the town? Or will he keep his monster asleep while others die around him?
It's a fascinating situation (without a clown in sight, may the writing gods be praised). And Wells takes the reader on a journey through it that includes mystery, dread, and humor. In the hands of some other author, that would be enough. But Wells does more than entertain us. He gives us things to think about. He gives us great characters to boot-come on, when was the last time you read a book where the hero was a likeable sociopath? And there's poetry in it. You'll love how he used William Blake's Tiger Tiger and Little Lamb. Besides, most of the gruesome is up front anyway.
Read this book. Skim the body processing if you must. But you simply don't want to miss the rest. It was a fabulous read and I recommend it highly.
Long version. You can scare the crap out of me (Aracnaphobia), and I will love you forever. You can make me bite my nails in terrible suspense (Wait Until Dark, The Village) or throw supernatural at me (Poltergeist) and I will sing with praise. But the moment you do gruesome, the moment you start showing me entrails and organs, my discomfort level shoots through the roof.
And this is why I would not have finished I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Well's if I had just picked it up off a shelf-because the main character is the son of a woman who owns a mortuary. We get to see him help process a mutilated body very early in the book, pumping fluids in etc., and Wells knows his craft so I was THERE. I'm sure it's not too gruesome for some, but I just have issues with organs. I don't know why. I also have an issue with clowns.
Clowns are, by far, the scariest things around. And this is not because I read the book IT by Stephen King as a wee lad because I didn't. It's because they're painted vessels of evil. End of story. They're perfect examples of the freakazoids that lurk in the uncanny valley.
Anyway, I'd heard Wells read a portion of this book that had all of us in the room crying because we were laughing so hard. So I read on, telling myself I had to at least get to that part. And I am so very happy I did.
I Am Not A Serial Killer is young adult story about a good-hearted teen named John Cleaver who is a sociopath with all the traits shared by serial killers. John's in counseling, but more importantly, he is convinced he can prevent himself from becoming a serial killer by keeping rules he's made for himself like not watching people for too long and complimenting someone when they make him angry. Such rules, he hopes, will keep him from feeding compulsions he won't be able to resist. The problem is a real serial killer has come to town (but unlike any you've seen before). And John may be the only one who can stop him. Will he let go of his rules to save the town? Or will he keep his monster asleep while others die around him?
It's a fascinating situation (without a clown in sight, may the writing gods be praised). And Wells takes the reader on a journey through it that includes mystery, dread, and humor. In the hands of some other author, that would be enough. But Wells does more than entertain us. He gives us things to think about. He gives us great characters to boot-come on, when was the last time you read a book where the hero was a likeable sociopath? And there's poetry in it. You'll love how he used William Blake's Tiger Tiger and Little Lamb. Besides, most of the gruesome is up front anyway.
Read this book. Skim the body processing if you must. But you simply don't want to miss the rest. It was a fabulous read and I recommend it highly.
32 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
Dan Wells has crafted something extraordinary with his first novel, I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER.
John Wayne Cleaver is our protagonist, and as you find out very early on, he isn't your average teenager. His troubles go much deeper than most, and are much more serious. See, he worries that he might become a serial killer. He has all the tendencies of a sociopath, and he is very aware of how dangerous they are.
John is obsessed with serial killers--how could he not be considering his tendencies, and the fact that he is named John Wayne (though his mother swears she didn't name him after the serial killer John Wayne Gacy). John, a boy in High School who also works at his family mortuary, begins to notice a strange pattern in the murders that are taking place in his small town. His personal investigation of the murders put him in a unique position to expose the killer, and also put him in danger of losing himself to his inner sociopath.
One of the things I especially liked about I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER, was that it doesn't seem to follow the typical public's view of "horror." It seems like people are hell-bent on assuming that horror is synonymous with hack-and-slash and blood-and-gore. Guess what? That's garbage, and Dan proves in this amazing novel--the first in a trilogy--that the old-school flavor of horror built on suspense and character is the way it should be written and enjoyed.
Dan's writing is clever, and extremely well done. There are moments where the novel seems YA, and others where is is straight-up Horror/Supernatural Horror. I think it was this accessible blend that really made this book excellent, in my opinion.
When I was reading this novel, I somehow managed to feel pleasantly disturbed, amused, horrified, terrified, and awed. How often can one book evoke that range of emotions, and make you pleased about all of them? I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER does just that.
Now, some people may mistakenly draw parallels to the Jeff Lindsay's character, Dexter. First of all, I know Dan, and he had this idea long before Dexter was even popular. Second, Dan handles the young sociopath infinitely better than Lindsay handles his young Dexter segments. Lastly, Dan's book shifts dramatically from normal Horror to a near-Supernatural Horror part way through the novel (and it succeeds where Lindsay's 3rd Dexter novel turned into complete crap). This book isn't like Dexter. It surpasses Dexter.
On that note, I'll mention that I've read the entire trilogy of Dan's John Cleaver novels. You all won't see them released in the US for a bit, but let me just say that where I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER is an amazing book, the two follow-ups manage to blow it our of the water.
Don't be afraid to pick up this novel. It is incredible, and the sequels that will come out over the next year are even better.
This was easily one of my favorite UK releases from last year, and will be one of my favorite US releases this year.
Recommended Age: 13 and up (the sequels, just so you know, should prolly be for 15 and up)
Language: None
Violence: Well, duh. It get's awesomely crazy at times. You did read the title of the book right?
Sex: None
John Wayne Cleaver is our protagonist, and as you find out very early on, he isn't your average teenager. His troubles go much deeper than most, and are much more serious. See, he worries that he might become a serial killer. He has all the tendencies of a sociopath, and he is very aware of how dangerous they are.
John is obsessed with serial killers--how could he not be considering his tendencies, and the fact that he is named John Wayne (though his mother swears she didn't name him after the serial killer John Wayne Gacy). John, a boy in High School who also works at his family mortuary, begins to notice a strange pattern in the murders that are taking place in his small town. His personal investigation of the murders put him in a unique position to expose the killer, and also put him in danger of losing himself to his inner sociopath.
One of the things I especially liked about I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER, was that it doesn't seem to follow the typical public's view of "horror." It seems like people are hell-bent on assuming that horror is synonymous with hack-and-slash and blood-and-gore. Guess what? That's garbage, and Dan proves in this amazing novel--the first in a trilogy--that the old-school flavor of horror built on suspense and character is the way it should be written and enjoyed.
Dan's writing is clever, and extremely well done. There are moments where the novel seems YA, and others where is is straight-up Horror/Supernatural Horror. I think it was this accessible blend that really made this book excellent, in my opinion.
When I was reading this novel, I somehow managed to feel pleasantly disturbed, amused, horrified, terrified, and awed. How often can one book evoke that range of emotions, and make you pleased about all of them? I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER does just that.
Now, some people may mistakenly draw parallels to the Jeff Lindsay's character, Dexter. First of all, I know Dan, and he had this idea long before Dexter was even popular. Second, Dan handles the young sociopath infinitely better than Lindsay handles his young Dexter segments. Lastly, Dan's book shifts dramatically from normal Horror to a near-Supernatural Horror part way through the novel (and it succeeds where Lindsay's 3rd Dexter novel turned into complete crap). This book isn't like Dexter. It surpasses Dexter.
On that note, I'll mention that I've read the entire trilogy of Dan's John Cleaver novels. You all won't see them released in the US for a bit, but let me just say that where I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER is an amazing book, the two follow-ups manage to blow it our of the water.
Don't be afraid to pick up this novel. It is incredible, and the sequels that will come out over the next year are even better.
This was easily one of my favorite UK releases from last year, and will be one of my favorite US releases this year.
Recommended Age: 13 and up (the sequels, just so you know, should prolly be for 15 and up)
Language: None
Violence: Well, duh. It get's awesomely crazy at times. You did read the title of the book right?
Sex: None
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great entry into the trilogy
Dan Wells is a great writer, and I'm glad I read this book. There's a lot of psychology to his horror, and that's something I enjoy much more than the gorefests some other author's... Read more
Published 18 days ago by Locke
5.0 out of 5 stars
OMG!!!!!!
I love this book. I actually found this book by a total accident. Once I started reading the book I honestly couldn't put it down. Read more
Published 26 days ago by Sean Maddox
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thriller with a twist
Teenage anti hero, which should not turn anyone off, who struggles against his own nature. A good read with sequels.
Published 1 month ago by Shabuki
3.0 out of 5 stars
goofy
It's okay, but it a little juvenile and the ending was really a sell out This story line had so much promise.
Published 1 month ago by Norma Dieppa
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great characters
This book is a nice change of pace from the epics I usually
read. It keeps the pages turning to find out what happens with young Mr. Cleaver. Read more
read. It keeps the pages turning to find out what happens with young Mr. Cleaver. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Kenneth
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good book with a terrific narration!
I have to say that I was pretty impressed with this book and its audio narration, especially when I realized what John Allen Nelson was trying to do here. Read more
Published 2 months ago by ChibiNeko
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not what I expected
Although I didn't know this book would include demons, it was a great read. If you have any interest in murder novels or serial killers, you must read and go along with John Wayne... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Kate marks
5.0 out of 5 stars
EXCITING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
fantastic book- provides gripping insight into the minds and psychology of sociopaths. I would HIGHLY recommend this book and its sequels.
Published 3 months ago by Shamra Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great, but needs tweaking
Though it was the first book that I've finished in under 2 weeks in a very long time, it could have been so much better. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Shannon Mawhiney
4.0 out of 5 stars
Absolute fun
I truly enjoyed this entire series. It was a little predictable but it was a blast the whole way through which I can not often say that. Certainly worth the time to read it.
Published 3 months ago by whitney hilliard
