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1[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/IamNotASerialKillerUSCover.jpg]]
2
3->''"If you met me on the street you'd never guess how much I wanted to kill you."''
4-->--'''[[SociopathicHero John Cleaver]]'''
5
6Hello, my [[MeaningfulName name]] is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy John]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Glover Wayne]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaver_(knife) Cleaver]] and [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial I am not a serial killer]]. However, I find [[SerialKiller 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 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macdonald_triad Macdonald Triad]] like 95% of all other serial killers. I'm also fascinated by death and corpses, but I'm a skilled mortician that works in the town mortuary, so what did you expect? I'm also fifteen years old, and I've been diagnosed as a sociopath. And I'm a [[LonersAreFreaks loner]] that has a [[NightmareFuelStationAttendant tough time]] making friends. It almost seems as if [[BecauseDestinySaysSo fate has decided]] that I should become a serial killer. Well ScrewDestiny, [[TitleDrop I am not a serial killer]]!
7
8!!The first trilogy:
9[[index]]
10* ''I Am Not a Serial Killer''
11* ''Literature/MrMonster''
12* ''Literature/IDontWantToKillYou''
13
14!!The second trilogy
15* ''Literature/TheDevilsOnlyFriend''
16* ''Over Your Dead Body''
17* ''Nothing Left to Lose''
18
19!!Other
20* ''[[http://thedanwells.com/index.php/next-of-kin/ Next of Kin]]'' - A novella serving as a lead-in to the second trilogy
21[[/index]]
22
23A [[Film/IAmNotASerialKiller film adaptation]], starring [[Film/WhereTheWildThingsAre Max Records]] as John and Creator/ChristopherLloyd as Mr. Crowley was released on August 26, 2016.
24----
25[[foldercontrol]]
26
27[[folder:Tropes throughout the series]]
28* BadassNormal: John.
29* CassandraTruth: John thinks that no one would believe him if he told people the truth that [[spoiler: people are being killed by demons, and spends most of his time trying to deal with things alone.]]
30* DeadpanSnarker: 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.
31* [[spoiler: DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Each book typically ends with John killing one (if not more) HumanoidAbomination.]]
32* [[spoiler: HumanoidAbomination: Most of the demons are this.]]
33* ImMelting: [[spoiler: Happens when the demons die.]]
34* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: John is responsible for quite a few deaths of innocent people throughout the series.]]
35** [[spoiler: At the end of the second novel, he explicitly calls and taunts a demon, causing it to come to his town and kill people.]]
36** [[spoiler: In the fifth novel, there is a demon that acts out people's intentions. Coupled with John's occasional homicidal impulses, well, you can guess the rest.]]
37* NoBodyLeftBehind: See ImMelting above. This is why it is very difficult to prove that [[spoiler: demons exist.]]
38* ReluctantPsycho: John himself.
39* SerialKillerKiller: [[spoiler: The titular character, after he kills a serial-killing demon.]]
40* SociopathicHero: John is a diagnosed sociopath.
41* ThisIsMyStory: Most first-person stories carry this trope. It's inevitable really. See the book's blurb above for example.
42* WiseBeyondTheirYears: John is much more mature than a typical high schooler.
43* WeaksauceWeakness: [[spoiler: Most of the demons have one, allowing John to kill them without too much trouble. The trick is being able to figure out these weakness, which John is really good at.]]
44** [[spoiler: In the first novel, the demon ("Mr. Crowley") cannot function without critical body parts such as heart, liver or lungs. When these parts become worn out (which happens at a very fast pace, presumably because it is assuming the identity of an old man) and not replaced in time, the demon becomes weak and dies.]]
45** [[spoiler: In the second novel, the demon mirrors emotions of people around it. When its victims become extremely scared, it also becomes too scared to do anything and is practically helpless. It is also as vulnerable to injuries like a normal human.]]
46[[/folder]]
47[[folder:Tropes in the first book]]
48* AdultsAreUseless: 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. [[spoiler: Double Subverted when this instinct to try to help winds up getting Dr. Neblin killed.]]
49* AppendageAssimilation: [[spoiler: The demon is capable of using the victim's body parts to replace its own parts when they become worn out.]]
50* AscendedDemon: John tries to be good. Really.
51** More literal in the case of the actual demon, who gave up being one in order to [[spoiler:remain with his wife]] and only went back to killing because [[spoiler: his body was giving out on him]].
52* AxCrazy: Specifically averted. John makes a point of explaining that a random murder is different from a serial killing. Although this is ultimately played with, considering that his murderous urges try to make him murder everyone he sees.
53* BringMyBrownPants: John is a bed wetter, and says he also loses control of his bladder in times of stress. [[spoiler:Like when he sees a demon kill a person.]]
54* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to ''Literature/{{Dexter}}'' if you can believe it. Most of the comedy in Dexter is replaced by tragedy, Squick, PsychologicalHorror and ParanoiaFuel while what comedy remains is limited to [[DeadpanSnarker snark]] and comedy so black no photons are capable of escaping.
55* DidYouThinkICantFeel: John gives a speech like this to his mother, accusing her of ignoring his feelings because she thinks of him as a sociopath.
56* DisappearedDad: John's father.
57* EnemyWithin: John's dark side, the side that wishes to kill everyone. John's rules are there to hide this, but it's always there...
58* EvenEvilHasStandards: He stalks, he maims, but patting dogs? Never. (To clarify, John recognizes animal abuse as a trait of sociopathy. Not wanting to hurt any animals, he avoids contact with them.)
59* EvilCannotComprehendGood: An interesting variant shows up in the first book, [[spoiler: when John is initially unable to figure out why the demon has started taking individual organs from its kills and using them to patch up its "Mr. Crowley" body, rather than killing one person and taking their shape to get a fresh body that would last it decades. It isn't until after a talk with Dr. Neblin that John realizes that the demon is in love with its wife, and doesn't want to give up its current form because that would mean giving up her. John notes the irony that a literal demon understands love better than he.]]
60* EvilFeelsGood: When John snaps and threatens his mother with a kitchen knife. He notes that seeing her terror is the first time in his ''life'' he has felt a genuine emotional connection with another human being, and his description of the experience is practically orgasmic.
61* TheFilmOfTheBook: Released in 2016.
62* ForTheEvulz: John considers this the defining trait of a serial killer as opposed to a simple murderer. Anyone can kill if the victim's death benefits them in some way, but a serial killer kills solely because they want to kill.
63* FreakOut
64* GenreShift: The genre shifts from a psychological character study to a [[spoiler: horror/scifi/fantasy thriller]] midway through the story when [[spoiler: it is revealed that the local serial killer John is obsessing over is actually a demon who harvest human body parts]].
65** Though the shift is explicitly foreshadowed when in the first quarter of the book, John casually says to the reader [[spoiler: that his sociopathy makes him a demon but NOT like the one he fought.]]
66* GodzillaThreshold: John very deliberately deconstructs the inhibitions he'd set up to keep himself from become a serial killer, knowing that he very possibly will not be able to rebuild them, because he believes it's the only way to take down the Clayton Killer.
67* GrayAndGrayMorality Or BlackAndGrayMorality: A diagnosed sociopath with murderous urges and no capacity for empathy who is nevertheless determined to kill only bad guys, vs a [[spoiler: body-snatching demon that is forced to kill humans in order to survive while remaining fully capable of love and other human emotions.]]
68* HeroicSelfDeprecation: To such a degree that it borders on UnreliableNarrator. For example John has much better social skills than he claims in the narration.
69* HeroicWillpower: 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. [[spoiler: Specifically when he's trying not to stab his own mother]].
70* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[spoiler: John does this to try and stop Bill Crowley from continuing to kill.]]
71* IDidWhatIHadToDo: When trying to kill a demon, some things must be done, and sacrifices - [[spoiler: John abandoning his rules in order to defeat Crowley]] - must be made...
72* KillAndReplace: [[spoiler: The demon's old M.O. After falling in love, it stops taking new identity.]]
73* LonersAreFreaks: John tries desperately to avert this so he befriends the other loner in the school, Max Bowen. Note that he's not trying to avoid being a freak, he knows that he's a freak and is trying to hide it by avoiding being a loner.
74* LoveRedeems: [[spoiler: This is what happened to the demon. After falling in love as "Mr. Crowley", he remains in this identity for decades to be with the woman he loves, though he is forced to go back to killing.]]
75* TheMainCharactersDoEverything: Although the author does give a reason, it's very convenient that John is capable of performing his own autopsies and such. Being obsessed with serial killers, he is proficient at "profiling" a serial killer when one eventually shows up.
76* MeaningfulName: 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 Creator/JohnWayne the Western actor, just as the actual serial killer was.
77** 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.
78** Crowley's name might also be an allusion to the notorious Aleister Crowley, who claimed to have summoned demons.
79* MomentKiller: It was John's fault really [[spoiler: (threatening people with a violent death won't win you any friends)]]; this scene also includes an example of HowMuchDidYouHear. Also an example of...
80* MoralEventHorizon: John's internal narration explains that, in a sense, he doesn't have one of these: where normal people would intuitively know that petting an animal is acceptable and cutting it open is not, John had to work that out by observation. As a result, he lives by a set of self-imposed rules designed to ensure he never gets anywhere ''close'' to the event horizon, because if he did he wouldn't be able to tell until he'd already crossed it.
81* MuggingTheMonster:
82** Rob Anders to John at the dance.
83** Soon after, a more literal example in [[spoiler:the drifter trying to BackStab [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Mr. Crowley]]]].
84* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: John
85* NothingExcitingEverHappensHere: The first murder is specifically said by the main character to be the most exciting thing he's ever seen happen in Clayton County.
86* ParentalSubstitute: John's therapist, Ben Neblin, kinda acts as a replacement for John's absent father. So does Mr. Crowley. [[spoiler:Too bad the latter is also a demon.]]
87* PoliceAreUseless: Played straight but justified, John does tell the police but it doesn't turn out well.
88* PsychologicalHorror
89* StalkerWithACrush: John stalks [[spoiler: Brooke Watson]] for most of the book.
90** Though it should be noted that he realizes this isn't love or anything resembling it, but rather an irresistible compulsion that he tries desperately to overcome, making this an aversion of StalkingIsLove.
91* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: The title.
92* TapOnTheHead: Averted in the first book. John has to strike [[spoiler:Crowley's wife]] several times on the head with a blunt object to get them to stop moving. [[{{Lampshading}} He mentions that it's always easier in the movies]].
93* ThisIsYourBrainOnEvil
94* TheWatson: John's 'friend' Max is really only there to fill in the audience by asking stupid questions.
95* WillTheyOrWontThey: Brooke clearly likes John, and John clearly likes her. Hence the stalking.
96* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [[spoiler: The Demon.]]
97* YouAreGrounded: [[spoiler: 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]]
98[[/folder]]

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