Totally Killer - Book Review

Totally Killer: A Novel by Greg Olear


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a sucker for pop culture. Insane amounts of inane pop culture trivia swirls continuously through my brain. It's only natural then, that I would adore anything filled with a plethora of pop culture references for me to cry, "Yes! Hey, I get that reference!" I miss TV's The Gilmore Girls.

Greg Olear's Totally Killer satisfied my pop culture proclivities in abundance. It takes place in 1991, the year I turned 15, so although I'm a bit younger than the main characters in the novel, I still related to it. Any book that can reference Parliament Lights (which was my brand of choice back when I was still a smoker), Alec Baldwin in The Marrying Man, Sassy magazine (oh how I miss it!), as well as the amazing music of that time possesses the key to my heart.

Aside from all that, this book is a darkly comic look at Baby Boomers vs. Generation X, written as a noirish mystery featuring well drawn characters with imagery that perfectly evokes NYC in 1991 (even for those like me that have never been there). It's easy and fun to read, with a great plot twist that I truly didn't see coming. I love a novel that surprises me.

I'd recommend this to everyone. Especially anyone who came of age in the 90s.