I Am Not a Serial Killer

"If you met me on the street you'd never guess how much I wanted to kill you."

—John Cleaver

Hello, my name is John Wayne Cleaver and I am not a serial killer. However, I find serial killers to be fascinating. And I also have some similarities to serial killers. Like the fact that I share all three traits of the Macdonald Triad like 95% of all other serial killers. I'm also fascinated by death and corpses, but since I'm a skilled mortician that works in the town mortuary what did you expect? I'm also fifteen years old, and I've been diagnosed as a sociopath. And I'm a loner that has a tough time making friends. It almost seems as if fate has decided that I should become a serial killer. Well Screw Destiny, I am not a serial killer!

See also the sequels, Mr. Monster and I Don't Want to Kill You.

Tropes used in I Am Not a Serial Killer include:

Adults Are Useless: Played straight in that John is the only one to discover who the serial killer is, averted in that the psychologist is shown to be somewhat helpful. Double Subverted when this instinct to try to help winds up getting Dr. Neblin killed.
Anti-Hero: John's rules are in place specifically to keep him from becoming something like this. By the end of the book, he's pretty far into Anti-Hero territory.
Ascended Demon - John tries to be good. Really.
- more literal in the case of the actual demon, who gave up being one in order to remain with his wife and only went back to killing because his body was giving out on him.
Ax Crazy: Specifically averted. John makes a point of explaining that a random murder is different from a serial killing.
Cassandra Truth: John thinks that no one would believe him if he told people the truth that Bill Crowley turns into a monster and kills people.
Deadpan Snarker: So very much. John is deadpan pretty much all the time anyway, and he has an extremely developed sense of humor. Expect him to say something like this at least once every page.
Disappeared Dad: John's father.
Easter Egg: John is studying Beowulf and Grendel in english class.
Enemy Within - John's dark side, the side that wishes to kill everyone. John's rules are there to hide this, but it's always there...
Even Evil Has Standards - He stalks, He maims, but patting dogs? Never.
The Film of the Book: Possibly.
Freak-Out
Genre Shift: The genre shifts from a psychological character study to a horror/scifi/fantasy thriller midway through the story when it is revealed that the local serial killer John is obsessing over is actually a demon who harvest human body parts.
- Though the shift is explicetly foreshadowed when in the first quarter of the book, John casually says to the reader that his sociopathy makes him a demon but NOT like the one he fought.
Heroic Willpower - John, being the protagonist of our story, has of course this virtue. No matter how much he wants to kill people, his massive will to be good is just too strong. Specifically when he's trying not to stab his own mother.
He Who Fights Monsters: John does this to try and stop Bill Crowley from continuing to kill.
I Did What I Had to Do - When trying to kill a demon, some things must be done sacrifices - John abandoning his rules in order to defeat Crowley - must be made...
Loners Are Freaks: John tries desperately to avert this so he befriends the other loner in the school, Max Bowen.
The Main Characters Do Everything - Although the author does give a reason, it's very convenient that John is capable of performing his own autopsies and such.
Meaningful Name: Subverted. John Wayne Gacy was a famous serial killer, and you might think John Wayne Cleaver is named after him- but you'd be wrong. He's actually named after John Wayne the Western actor.
- Whether this one was intended or not, there was also an Australian serial killer named John Wayne Glover, which ends up as a much closer phonetic match to Cleaver.
Moment Killer - It was John's fault really (threatening people with a violent death won't win you any friends); this scene also includes an example of How Much Did You Hear?
- Though to be fair, Rob Anders was asking for it.
Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: John
Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: The first murder is specifically said by the main character to be the most exciting thing he's ever seen happen in Clayton County.
Parental Substitute: John's therapist, Ben Neblin, kinda acts as a replacement for John's absent father. So does Mr. Crowley. too bad he's also a demon.
Police Are Useless: Played straight but justified, John does tell the police but it doesn't turn out well.
Psychological Horror - It's not just blood and gore people. It's so much more than that...
Reluctant Psycho - Guess who?
Short Run in Peru: The book came out in the UK, Germany and Taiwan before coming out in the US April 2010.
Sociopathic Hero - This one speaks for itself.
Stalker with a Crush: John stalks Brooke Watson for most of the book.
This Is My Story - Most first-person stories carry this trope. It's inevitable really. See the book's blurb above for example.
This Is Your Brain on Evil
The Watson - John's 'friend' Max is really only there to fill in the audience by asking stupid questions.
Will They or Won't They? - Brooke clearly likes John, and John clearly likes her. Hence the stalking.
You Are Grounded: John's Mother doesn't allow him to participate in embalming any more bodies after John gets too excited examining the body of the second victim of the Clayton Killer