About growing up in the 1980s and 1990s when there's an active serial killer in your neighbourhood, and no one seems to know what to do with that, and also that might not be the biggest problem. I haven't read any interviews with Hernandez to see how much autofiction is in here, but it does feel like it has a grain of lived experience in it. The serial killer was real (though not named in the book), and the rape culture of the time, well... I did this with a book club with a bunch of women who're Hernandez' age or a little older, and "The fucking '80s!" was the reigning sentiment.

The storyline alternates between a film editor in present day working on a tacky true crime show about serial killers, and her childhood and teen years living through it. She is a hot mess making bad choices in both timelines. I thought the flashback sections were a little stronger, though I did like the plotline with her son in present day, and how it's not like we've grown out of rape culture.

What really stuck with me though, was this line: "They were everywhere. All of them. These men lurking and leering. Touching and rubbing. All of them. But supposedly, there was just one guy." So much of the book is about how while obviously the Scarborough Stalker was terrible, at least the adults seemed to understand that. No one understood about date rape, or the paedophile next door who was such a nice guy, or statutory rape. In all the focus on "stranger danger" and "rape whistles," none of the adults notice/care about the danger every single young woman is in from friends/family/neighbours. And if something bad does happen to her, even the actual serial killer, it was somehow her fault anyway.

This book was a lot, but I thought it handled heavy topics around rape culture, generational trauma and homophobia sensitively and empathetically. As with The Story of Us, Hernandez didn't quite land the plane in a way that worked for me, but I can understand the choices she made.