Dexter By Design – Jeff Linsday.

So I've been reading the DEXTER novels by Jeff Linsday and I've been genuinely really enjoying them. Really! I actually thought that the plot twist in Dexter In The Dark was really interesting and I thought it was initially well written. Well, apart from the extremely stupid and goofy ass cult scene in the island. That was dumb.

But I was really really excited to read Dexter By Design. I wanted to see how Dexter was dealing with the situation, expand on it more, etc.

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It mentions Moloch once.

Fucking once.

Okay, no biggie. Brian Moser has disappeared for like three books but I know that he appears in later books, so maybe it's the same here.

(spoiler alert: It's not)

So how is the book on its own?

Well, the characters are literally all the same, they have not developed at all. Rita cries basically every page. Cody and Astor are always like "muhh duhhh why u no let us kill", Doakes is…. Alright, I'll admit it, Doakes is like the only enjoyable aspect of the book and he makes an appearance like once or twice. I revel in every scene he's in. He's so fucking cool lmao.

Deborah as a character? Well, she swears alot, she gets angry alot, she assumes Dexter is a biblical prophet… Alot. And she gets stabbed and her character is reduced to Bed-Ridden Deborah.

Uhhh, what else? Well Chutsky (I can never spell his name) was pretty interesting in this book. I was pretty surprised when he suggested they had to kill Brandon. It showed that there's a side to him too. I would've been interested if he too developed a Dark Passenger.

Now onto the main villain and the plot.

So the Brandon and Alex backstory was pretty interesting to me. As far as I'm concerned, this is likely the only gay relationship that Linsday had written (I could be wrong) so I am glad he wrote it off as completely normal. That makes me happy.

Alex was an interesting set up as a villain because he is technically the first innocent person Dexter kills. And this should have been a big moment but noooooo "I'm an inhuman monster so I can't feel guilt"

Man, fuck off. That would've been a really good plot point for Dexter. Sure, he does feel initial guilt, but… That's it. That's literally it.

Brandon is a great portrayal of a sociopath in my opinion. He's great from beginning to end and I just wish we saw more scenes of him.

Now the plot itself of this book is extremely repetitive. It is, quite literally, a copy of the first book. Only it doesn't have the first books charm. It genuinely feels like Linsday just couldn't figure out what to write about here.

Now, the ending… Is stupid.

I genuinely do not think Linsday can write endings decently. He has this thing where he suddenly realises he needs to end the book because his robot AI has reached its page limit, because he wraps up the book so quickly and in such a rushed manner that it's so stupid. OF COURSE the one person suspicious enough of Dexter would die in the ending. OF COURSE Rita and her children are alive. OF COURSE Dexter gets away with it all. OF COURSE Rita is pregnant – wait, what? I'm still confused about this tbh, but I guess it was the only thing Linsday could think of to further the plot.

I won't talk about Dexter as a character, because he's just boring here. He's actually more unlikeable than the previous books. I genuinely want him to get punched in the face now. I fucking hate him.

All in all, not a good book tbh. I'm still gonna finish the series but I did not like this one.

4.5/10