0.001752% of relationships end in homicide.
—The very first line in the book
100% Match is a 2022 horror/comedy novelette by Patrick C. Harrison III.
Bart is a thirty-year-old fast-food worker who enjoys watching documentaries, exercising, throwing cats out of his front yard, and committing multiple murders. Longing to start a relationship, Bart spends his time off work seeking a soul mate within his small-town community. But Bart doesn't want just any soul mate—he must have the perfect mate. A 100% match.
100% of these tropes provide examples of:
- Agony of the Feet: At the end of the novel, Sara starts torturing Bart by sawing off his toes.
- Alliterative Name: The protagonist's full name is Bartholomew Bartley.
- Asshole Victim: Sara drugs Bart, strips him of his clothes, and tortures him to death for the purpose of making a snuff film. By the end of the story, Bart has murdered at least twelve people, including a child and a police officer. All Sara did was make the town a safer place by killing Bart.
- Ass Shove: During the torture scene at the climax, Bart has his penis cut off and shoved into his rectum with a dildo.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: One of Bart's regular habits is kicking, throwing, or even kidnapping and murdering stray dogs and cats.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Exaggerated. Because the book is told from Bart's POV, expect him to talk about normal everyday subjects and then switch over to something vile/reprehensible he did in the same sentence without skipping a beat.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The final chapter depicts a sequence where Bart is tortured to death by Sara for the sake of entertaining patrons who watch snuff films.
- Crippling Castration: During the torture scene at the end of the book, Sara cuts off Bart's penis and smashes his testicles with a hammer.
- Death by Irony: Bart's first (onscreen) victim is a child he had chained in his basement after holding them captive indefinitely. Bart is murdered by Sara in the final chapter after she drugged him and tied him to a chair in her basement.
- Death of a Child: The book's first casualty is some nameless kid Bart had chained in his basement. It's also mentioned that Wendy's five children were amongst the casualties of the apartment building that burned down after Bart set it on fire.
- Downer Ending: Bart is drugged and rendered unconscious by Sara, who later reveals that she's a Serial Killer who tortures people for her snuff film audience. Naked, unarmed, and tied to a chair, Bart can do nothing as Sara slowly tortures him to death. Bart's death would normally be a positive outcome, but the revelation of Sara's snuff film career means there's another murderer lurking around town. Even worse, the only person who knows Sara's true nature is dead, leaving her free to kill more people.
- Evil Is Petty: Bart murders Debra and Wendy simply because his date with them didn't go as planned. He also kills a police officer because he didn't want to get caught driving with a suspended license, which would've netted him a misdemeanor at worst or a massive fine he needed to pay.
- Eye Scream: Part of Bart's prolonged death involves having needles shoved into his eyeballs.
- Family Extermination: It's heavily implied Bart murdered both his parents, his grandfather, and even his baby brother.
- Fat Bastard: While not obese, Bart is definitely a pudgy, overweight man. He's also a gross fast-food employee who constantly tampers with the food he cooks and murders several innocents.
- Gone Horribly Right: After spending months, possibly years looking for his perfect match, Bart finally finds it at the end of the novel. She's a woman who makes a living doing snuff films, with Bart being the latest victim.
- I Ate WHAT?!: One of Bart's more disgusting habits is tampering with the food he cooks with at work. Some examples include: snot on hamburgers, a roach in a milkshake, a dead cricket mixed with fries, hamburger patties made from dead dogs and cats, semen mixed with mayonnaise, and excrement mixed with chili.
- I Love the Dead: After Bart murders a cop on the same day he has a successful date with Sara, he celebrates by "violating" her corpse with her nightstick.
- Karma Houdini: Surprisingly, it's not Bart, but Sara who gets away with everything. The final chapter reveals that Sara kidnaps and murders people to make snuff films. She wastes no time butchering Bart after telling him who she truly is. And since no one else in town suspects Sara, she'll more than likely kill again in the near future.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: In spite of a very long history of violence, murder, and tampering with food and beverages at his job, Bart never gets in trouble for any of it. That is, up until he runs into Sara, a Serial Killer who drugs him and tortures him to death in a snuff film.
- Make It Look Like an Accident:
- How Bart killed his parents, grandfather, and baby brother. His mother drank tea secretly laced with cyanide; his father "jumped" in front of a bus; his brother died from sudden infant death syndrome while Bart was present; his grandfather died from hypoglycemia because Bart tampered with his insulin.
- How Bart kills Debra and Wendy. The former died after Bart placed hydrofluoric acid into her bottle of perfume. The latter died after her apartment building "mysteriously" caught on fire, killing Wendy and her children.
- Noodle Incident: Several, since Bart intentionally refuses to go into detail about certain subjects. Most notably, Bart did something in a nursing home involving a bearded dragon, a cucumber, and a mallet. Whatever it was upset his date Debra and caused her to leave.
- Repetitive Name: The main character, due to having a long first name, tends to introduce himself to new acquaintances as "Bart Bartley." He is fully aware how comical this sounds.
- Shout-Out: Bart mentions that, due to his name, he gets compared to "a popular cartoon character."
- Teens Are Monsters: Bart almost all but states he killed his baby brother when he was only twelve.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Why no one in the book takes suspicion of Bart. He looks like an average, chubby fast-food worker, not a depraved murderer who kills people for petty reasons.
- Title Drop: The final line in the book is Bart stating he found his 100% match...right after she tortures him to death.
- Toilet Humour: When Bart is pulled over by a police officer, he intentionally farts very loudly in front of her to try and drive her away.82% of women who hear a stranger fart try to avoid interaction with this person.
- Villain Protagonist: The book is told from the perspective of a sociopathic Spree Killer who is trying to get in a relationship with another woman.
- Wham Line: The very last line of the first chapter, confirming that Bart is in fact a Spree Killer who murders people nonchalantly.Before heading to bed, I shoot the kid I have chained up in the basement. 76% of women can be convinced that the sound of a gunshot was actually a car backfiring.
- Would Hurt a Child: We find out just how disturbed Bart is when he off-handedly remarks how he shot a kid he had chained up in his basement.
