I feel like the author had a personal challenge writing this--how to depict the most gruesome, gory, and visceral killings in the most poetic way possible. This book is unbelievably well written, putting bodies of victims on a pedestal, and the act of killing turned into a dark art. I was expecting gore fest, and you know, it was and it had, but it also had a strange sort of poetry, the macabre beauty of written words obessing over death.

It also had a lot of just gut-wrenching moments. The thing I haven't expected, because I didn't see it discussed about this book, is the fact it's not just about perverted serial killers, but also about AIDS. AIDS in this story is the monster in the dark, the true terror of gay community. I'm not going to say this is some sort of metaphore--the book is very much about four men, three predators of different kinds and one "perfect" victim. But underlaying that type of violence is the other story, the one drenched in anger, anguish and pain over AIDS, the critism of the way the pandemic was mishandled, American goverment just letting gay community die off.

There were parts that I laughed out loud because they were humorus in the darkest way possible. But there were also parts, quotes, that got me deep, that made me want to lie down and think, or just cry. It was all in all a hard read, and I expected more mindless fun read, but that was my mistake not the book's.