If typos tend to irritate you, watch out—you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Replete with obvious errors such as sentence fragments, lack of subject-verb agreement, spelling errors, and incorrect substitution of homophones or near-homophones, this piece seems to have bypassed a basic spell-check let alone a professional editor. However, it is generally obvious what the author intended to say and the content itself is well-presented. A few instances of tennis ball effect where the author repeats the same quote (or even reproduces the same image) in a different context may leave the reader with bouts of deja vu, but at least the ideas presented are well-researched and the conclusions drawn are rational.

This book was difficult to get through. While the author is relating events that happened during his early college years, the writing seems fraught with the ego and self-absorbed melodrama of a pubescent teen, particularly in the first half of the book. The narrative progresses slowly, and the reader is left with the occasional impression that the author awkwardly “mined” a thesaurus in an attempt to impress. Much more autobiographical and less useful as a source of insight into the criminal mind than the jacket lets on.

I’m an English nazi at heart, and I still find entire sections of this book utterly dull. While, e.g., the student blunders are often humorous, other sections of the book are overrun with what are clearly simple typos or technically correct sentences that might offer double-entendre if you’re inclined to be hysterically pedantic.

Overall, more yawns than chuckles. If you pick it up, do yourself a favor and just skip around and browse the few sections that are filled with the most egregious examples of stupidity.

That pretty much sums it up. If you don’t give much credence to “being stuck in the anal stage of child development” as an excuse for serial murder (or anything else), and your eyes are prone to roll as an explanation of an oedipal complex is unfolding before them, this book is an utter waste of time.

The book is extremely dated, incorporating none of the modern psychology theories on serial killers, and as such presents more as a study of the history of psychoanalysis than as a study of the criminal mind. Might make an interesting case study when contrasted with contemporary works on serial killer psychology and modern profiling techniques, particularly for criminology enthusiasts or students.