I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I went into Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito. I knew it was a book about a Victorian governess who definitely has some issues but I wasn’t expecting it to be one of my favourite books of the year. And I also wasn’t expecting it to be so gruesome. 

Winifred Nott has just arrived at Ensor House prepared to be the perfect Victorian governess for her new family. She meets her new charges, Drusilla and Andrew, and plans to dutifully tutor them, tell them bedtime stories and only joke about eating children. As Winifred spends time in this dreary estate and learns about the pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family, the more trouble she has keeping to her plan. 

She spends her time with the children, walking with Mr Pounds, dealing with the jealousy of Mrs Pounds, creeping around in the night, and gently tormenting the rest of the house staff. But every day she struggles to stifle the horrific compulsions of her past.

If you couldn’t tell from the title, our main character Winnifred Nott is not exactly the most stable person, and you very quickly see it in the book. A lot of what she does seems to be her trying her best at ‘acting’ normal. It’s clear that something has happened in her past and it’s not long before we find out what exactly that is. I won’t spoil it for you but Winifred Nott is not exactly a normal woman for the time period. She is genuinely quite unhinged. Sometimes you’re not entirely sure whether what she’s thinking about has actually happened or if she’s just imagining it. And her imagination sure is something! 

I wasn’t really expecting this but the book is genuinely grotesque. The main character does some absolutely despicable things in graphic detail so if you’re not a fan of reading about that type of stuff then I’d recommend giving this a miss. The last part of the book is especially gruesome. A lot of the book is just gross. I don’t know how else to describe it.

I feel weird calling this a Christmas book but it is set during the lead up to Christmas and the book reaches its climax at Christmas. So if you’re into disturbing books set at Christmas then this might be the perfect one for you! And it’s being adapted into a movie! They’ve just started filming and this is a movie I’m gonna be keeping an eye on because I think it could truly be great if it’s done well.

This ended up being one of my favourite reads of the year, if not my favourite. All I want is another book like this so I’m going to be spending my time looking for anything that’s slightly similar.