Kill Your Darlings

How it reads

Kill Your Darlings is thriller (literary thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a big city setting, in the present day, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are secrets, art and creativity and redemption. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 273 pages it's a quick read. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.