If Looks Could Kill by Julie Berry

If Looks Could Kill asks important questions about violence against women, pulling no punches on the way to a hopeful conclusion.

If Looks Could Kill by Julie Berry. Simon & Schuster, 2025. 411 pages.

• Reading Level: Teens, ages 15-18
• Recommended For: ages 15 and up

If Looks Could Kill: The Set-Up

London, 1888: In his solitary Whitechapel flat, the man who is even now gaining notoriety as “Jack the Ripper” is reading news of his latest strike. “I was kinder than I could have been. Kinder to each hellcat than she deserved.” He despises ladies of the night, but then, he despises all women. And men, too – hypocrites who shudder at defiled female bodies before going out to defile other female bodies in their own way. “Jack” has a more noble goal in mind, but with the police closing in on his operation, it’s time to pull up stakes and return to America.

New York, same year: Tabitha Woodward is wondering why she joined the Salvation Army. She had heard the call and was suffused with a warmth and light she took to be the Holy Spirit. Now, faced with the degradation and despair of places like the Bowery, she feels totally inadequate. Not so her roommate and partner, who looks like a Dresden doll with nerves of steel. Pearl knows what a Christian calling is and she’s determined to live up to it – and to see all of her Salvation sisters live up to it too. Pearl doesn’t mind marching into a bar to the rough jibes of ogling men and offering copies of War Cry for a penny each, whereas Tabitha is desperately casting around for a bushel to hide her light under.

Neither girl is prepared for the sex trade that flourishes in dark corners and nondescript houses, or for predators like the city’s most notorious madam. Neither girl is aware that a murderer who preys on women is heading their way in a transatlantic steamship. Neither girl suspects that a mythical female force is rising to fight back: that dreaded figure with snaky hair who turns men into stone.

If Looks Could Kill: The Payoff

The genre might best be described as historical fantasy with elements of horror, and it’s a hell many readers may not want to visit. Yet perseverance yields its rewards, as when Tabitha comes to the point of despair when so many women seem beyond rescue: “You have too many lost daughters, I told [God]. As though God should have looked after them better. Remembered where he put them.”

But later in that conversation she remembers the cross, and a God who is “Wounded with the pain of an entire world. The bottomless pain of countless millions through countless years. I marveled at it. I stood at a distance with bowed head.”

The pain of an entire world is too much for any mortal to bear, but each soul plucked from bondage is a world unto herself. The novel offers a peek at some of the world’s worst pain – not nearly as graphic as it could have been – but demonstrates how those more fortunate ones, like us, standing in the shadow of the cross, might shine light into one corner without being overcome by darkness ourselves. It’s a rough ride, but a hopeful conclusion.

Considerations:

• Language: Several misuses of God’s name, some by rough characters who will surely face judgment for it, others on the verge of prayer.
• Romance: Love blooms between Tabitha and Mike, an upstanding Irish bartender, leading to some kissing. Against this background the romance angle is sweet and wholesome.

Bottom Line: A novel that takes readers down a grim path that ends at a redemptive destination.

Related Reading From Redeemed Reader

• Reviews: Other books by Julie Berry we’ve reviewed are The Passion of Dolssa and Lovely War (YA; both starred reviews); The Emperor’s Ostrich and Wishes and Wellingtons (Middle Grade); and Long Ago on a Silent Night (Picture Book, starred review).
• Resource: See our list of 16 Books for 16-year-old Girls for stories that are great for older teens. For those who are interested in more books like If Looks Could Kill, consider our round-up of Trafficking Books for Teens.
• Reflection: “The Uses of Terror” considers how some scary stories can serve a purpose in a Christian perspective.

You may purchase If Looks Could Kill from Amazon