Disclaimer: I requested this book from Net Galley and received an advance review copy for free. I'm leaving this review voluntarily. 

I know that I say I'm soft all the time (I am). But I also love a good mystery, scary & disturbing art, and listening to true crime podcasts. So, when I saw Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath I knew I had to read it. I knew it was going to be dark and bloody, but I was still caught off guard by the gore. There's just something about the art style that made everything extra disturbing. I checked the locks so many times after reading this graphic novel. It was so good in the worst ways, but that's just what I expect from horror-mystery books. 

As I said I knew before reading, based on the description and cover, that this was going to be a blood bath. However, I didn't expect the art to be so disarming. It added so much to those feelings of unease I got while reading this graphic novel. It is just extra unsettling to see cute anthropomorphic animals being murdered by equally cute and fluffy murderers. There are a few murder scenes in this book. But that first one was all on page and so meticulously gory. It caught me so off guard. Which is why I think the art style is perfect for this story. I've read gory comics before I've become desensitized to fictional human gore. It's everywhere in all types of media. But cute anthropomorphic animal gore is new (to me) and the murders were brutal. I've never seen anything like it before and because of that this graphic novel got to me. It got under my skin and made me uncomfortable and scared. But I had to keep reading. 

I needed to know what was going to happen next. I was invested in the mystery. Could "small-town serial killer Samantha Strong" (taken from the description) find her rival? And if she did what would she do? And what about the rest of the people in town? I became so attached to the characters, especially the side characters. Specifically Bertie the turtle (not just because turtles are my favorite animal). There was just something endearing about the way he chose to eat that chew-pop. He didn't have to eat it like that. It was so silly and it brought a bit of humor and sweetness to this very dark graphic novel. I needed to know if he was going to be okay. I was also so invested in Samantha's story. 

Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees put me in the strange position where I was rooting for a murderer. I wanted Samantha to win despite her being a serial killer. The way her rival was behaving at the near the end of the book was unhinged. Watching the semi-subtle scheming/ planning of the rival was horrifying. What was going to happen next? What would the rival do? And I know from the readers side the rival wasn't being subtle at all. But the mentality of small towns is just different. I grew up in a small town and the amount of stuff people just let slide is alarming. So, I don't even think the people truly registered that something was off. And I think Patrick Horvath did an amazing job of capturing that a bit of that mentality. 

Lastly I want to say a few thing. One, I'm still uncomfortable. Two, that duck will haunt me. Three, I can't wait to see what Patrick Horvath does next. Three I can't believe this was a debut graphic novel, it was damn good.