Alex’s Escape by L. Andrew Cooper
Horrific Scribblings (February 2025)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
“Fourteen-year-old psychopath Alex Packard has his own house, a shadow version of his parents’ house that THEY help him build.” That alone caught my attention immediately. Alex takes his victims there to kill them in the most entertaining of ways with his final victims in his hometown being his own parents. Police can’t catch him because there’s no physical evidence to tie him to the crimes. What happens in his house, doesn’t happen the exact same way in the real world.
Then he moves to LA to live with his uncles, Bruce and Aaron. They graciously take their nephew in and feels safe to come out to them. He creates different bonds with them and they have no idea how they are being manipulated, especially Aaron, whose bulb is not quite as bright as Bruce’s. The death toll begins and rises quickly upon Alex’s arrival. Everyone is suspicious of him but again, he cannot be caught. Everything just gets dark and bloodier and heads in a direction I absolutely never saw coming.
I’ll admit that I read a lot of horror and even quite a bit of splatterpunk and extreme horror, but some of these scenes really made me think my mother may be right and my face just might freeze like this and well.. enough is enough. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the very interesting ways Alex made his deaths and I especially loved his “Confessions” game. However, at first it felt like all I was going to read about was each different death and how charming this young psychopath seemed to be and I was feeling a little bit over it. But then… THEN.. it got really interesting once it got towards the 75% mark and I was hooked. I had so many theories about who and/or what THEY were but I none of them included what THEY really turned out to be. This last quarter almost felt like a different book, but I also could see why the author did what he did. Personally, I was thrilled with it.
While I may have had some small issues with the book, including some sentences that just didn’t seem necessary, the last part really made up for it when I finally got some answers and really liked the direction the author took. Bravo! Prepare yourself for a very visceral torture scenes and hardcore delight. Bring your popcorn and your gag reflex and enjoy the show!
