Suitabook#MurderTrending
Gretchen McNeil
- Reading
- Because the pace is reportedly breakneck and the violence detailed, consider checking in after the opening section. Discuss Dee’s choices and the justice system separately from whether the spectacle feels entertaining.
- Themes
- Justice and wrongful conviction: Dee is convicted after what is described as a bogus or unjust trial and resists execution while seeking the truth about her stepsister’s death. The system is presented as corrupt, commercially controlled and willing to punish an innocent teenager; the book invites scrutiny of whether punishment can count as justice.
- Violence as entertainment: Executions are streamed through an app and presented to the public as entertainment, with professional killers carrying them out. The book takes a critical view of this.
- Solidarity under pressure: Dee forms a group with other prisoners, and they build alliances while attempting to survive changing rules and investigate the truth. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Give particular attention to detailed killings, execution imagery, wrongful imprisonment and the spectacle of audiences watching violence. The treatment is described as campy, suspenseful and entertaining as well as disturbing.