This book blew me away because I was not expecting it to be so good. The movie is iconic, but getting into the head of the characters makes it that much more raw and real when they die or get caught or do creepy shit like Bates does. You get really invested in the main character, the girl who dies in the shower scene, and you think maybe that's at the end of the book but no. It's not even halfway through. I felt so much for her and then it just flipped point of view to her sister, to Bates, to a random detective. I didn't know who was going to die, how he was going to get caught and the reveal that his mother had been dead all along HIT so hard at the end you could really feel how troubled Bates was and you really could understand why he was so fucked up. I loved this book.