Book Review: Guillotine by Delilah S. Dawson

‘Guillotine’ by Delilah S. Dawson was published in 2024. It is a short story that explores the super-rich and exclusivity of it through grotesque and visceral horror.

The horror in this book was harrowing and intimate in a variety of ways and was incredibly interesting to look into. With that in mind, I encourage you to be aware of what may be a triggering topic for you. This book contains many trigger warnings and it is imperative that you read the trigger warnings for your own peace of mind.

The story follows Dez, a young, scrappy, and ambitious fashion student, who decides to utilise a fleeting connection she made in a nightclub, having taken a man, Patrick Ruskin’s, number, to get her foot in the door in the world of fashion.

After a number of dates, teasing and trying to seduce Patrick, and manage to meet his family. Not because she had any romantic interest in him, she barely liked him, but the opportunity to meet her was worth performing a few sex acts in Dez’s eyes.

I really enjoyed this book, each character in the story is proven to be conniving, deceitful, cruel, and ostentatious. They live in a league of their own in a state of otherworldly opulence. It’s incredibly uncanny in its surreal, small world brimming with secrets and built on the backs of horrific acts.

I loved how the various reveals were foreshadowed, from the way the servers in the house are contractually obligated to exist separately in silence away from the Ruskins, to the twist where one woman, Valerie, stages a coup, and the world of peace and supposed imperviousness is ripped out from underneath the Ruskins, and while alluding to and later confronting every last skeleton in their closets.

I really enjoyed how each punishment was interwoven to explore the transgressions each family member performed due to their perceived power, privilege, and supremacy. I loathed many of the characters in this story, which added to the catharsis of their respective punishments.

I loved how thrilling, exciting, and deplorable this story was. It was an extravagant exploration of human emotions, drives, and what makes a person go to extremes.