✦ BLURB ✦
Love is patient. Love is kind. Love will absolutely eliminate the competition if necessary.
✶ PRE-READING ✶
I was expecting dark comedy, a dash of cringe, maybe some workplace awkwardness à la Fleabag meets Gone Girl. The cover screamed “offbeat,” and the blurb suggested I’d be trapped inside a dangerously deluded mind - which, yes please. Always here for female narrators who are slightly unhinged but deeply committed to their own reality.
✶ POST-READING ✶
As I thought... This book is WICKED. Julie’s narration is so tightly wound and gloriously off-kilter that every page is laced with tension, even when nothing “big” is happening. That uneasy, crawling feeling that something is very, very wrong? Jennifer Holdich serves it cold and with a smile. The satire is razor-sharp - Julie is one spreadsheet away from turning “project management” into an actual crime.
It surprised me by... How deeply it got under my skin. Julie’s delusions aren’t played just for laughs - they’re disturbingly plausible, grounded in patterns of behavior that are all-too-recognizable. The tone dances a fine line between hilarious and horrifying, especially as we start to peel back the layers of Julie’s past. That final line? Still haunting me. This is an unreliable narrator masterpiece, and it goes way harder than I expected.
✦ RECOMMENDATIONS ✦
📖 Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
The uncomfortable intimacy of being inside the head of a lonely, delusional woman with some very bad ideas is a perfect match. Bonus: both women will haunt you long after the last page.
📺 You (Netflix)
Julie Tudor walks so Joe Goldberg can jog - both narrators are charismatic, manipulative, and totally convinced of their own romantic narrative. Except Julie’s doing it in kitten heels and a cosy cardigan, which somehow makes it worse.
✦ MUSIC PAIRING ✦
Because sometimes, the heart of a story plays out like a song.
🎵 Featured Song: “Oblivion” – Grimes
(Slinky, dreamy, and deceptively dark - just like Julie’s inner monologue.)
🎶 Vibe Album: Art Angels – Grimes
(Weird, girly, unpredictable, and occasionally deranged in the best way.)
🎧 Artist Recommendation: MARINA (especially Electra Heart era) – if Julie had a playlist, this would be her villain origin mixtape.
✧ VIBE CHECK ✧
Colour Palette: Dusty pink, blood red, Excel green
Soundtrack: Soft jazz and office background noise, constantly undercut by sirens and internal screamingSeason: Late spring, when everything looks lovely on the surface and you forget that poison ivy is growing beneath the roses
Mood: Darkly funny, claustrophobic, and deeply unsettling
Scent: Expensive perfume clinging to a knife handle
★ TAROT CARD PULLED ★
Santa Muerte Tarot, The Moon
The Moon is a card of illusions, half-truths, and dangerous delusions - and in Santa Muerte, it’s hauntingly literal. A woman gazes into a moonlit pond and sees not her reflection, but a skeleton. It’s Julie in a single image: presenting one polished version of herself to the world while the truth rots just beneath the surface. Beautiful, unnerving, and absolutely perfect for a story built on warped perceptions and unsettling obsession.
Julie Tudor is (not) a Psychopath publishes on the 8th of July, 2025. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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