From the publisher:
Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she's even better at getting away with murder.

Every year, Dr. Clark searches for the worst man at Gorman University--professor, student, or otherwise--and plots his well-deserved demise. Thanks to her meticulous planning, she's avoided drawing attention to herself...but as she's preparing for her biggest kill yet, the school starts probing into the growing body count on campus. Determined to keep her enemies close, Dr. Clark insinuates herself into the investigation and charms the woman in charge. Everything's going according to her master plan...until she loses control with her latest victim, putting her secret life at risk of exposure.

Meanwhile, Gorman student Carly Schiller is just trying to survive her freshman year. Finally free of her emotionally abusive father, all Carly wants is to focus on her studies and fade into the background. Her new roommate has other ideas. Allison Hadley is cool and confident--everything Carly wishes she could be--and the two girls quickly form an intense friendship. So when Allison is sexually assaulted at a party, Carly becomes obsessed with making the attacker pay...and turning her fantasies about revenge into a reality.

Review:

This book has been everywhere on my Instagram and TikTok feeds and I was really intrigued after reading the synopsis. I absolutely wanted to read something not fantasy after coming down from Two Twisted Crowns, so I dove in. I completely get what this story was trying to do, but it missed the mark.

Scarlett is an English professor with dreams of furthering her academic research but is being held back by the lecherous interim department head who only furthers the careers of those who sleep with him. His time is coming, though, because in her spare time, Scarlett is a serial killer who murders men who sexually assault or abuse women. Interspersed with Scarlett's tale is Carly's story. Carly is a shy and awkward college freshman who is escaping her abusive father and her doormat mother who pretends none of it is happening. She is trying to navigate college life, making friends (something her father never allowed her to have), and generally being a normal 18 year old while avoiding advances by her English professor.

This story was marketed as a darker Promising Young Woman and while it was, there was something missing that kept me from rooting for either Scarlett or Carly. Carly's story was filled with entirely too much teen angst and had me wishing she'd just go see a therapist and figure her self out instead of being so clingy and overly attached to the one (undeserving) person who showed her any sort of attention. Scarlett's, on the other hand, was so devoid of any emotion other than rage and more rage because she was trying and failing to hide the rage, that it felt charicature-ish. In fact, she was so bad at hiding her emotions, it's absolutely amazing she hadn't been caught long before this. There was a twist right about halfway that I didn't see coming, but seems pretty obvious looking back that was probably the best part of the whole book. This is also another one of those books that I think I may just be too old for--that me in my mid 20's would be ravenous for.

3.75 / 5 stars
The book contains violence, sexual assault, murder and sexual situations between heterosexual and homosexual couples.

Review: They Never Learn by Layne Fargo