Don Roff’s twisted little thriller is what happens when a grim fairy tale wanders into Catholic-school hallways armed with scalpels and sardonic wit. Billed as “Dexter meets Heathers,” Clare at Sixteen follows a Midwestern honors student whose report-card perfection hides a meticulously managed hobby: serving lethal justice to the worst predators in her small town. It’s YA horror with teeth—equal parts dark comedy, social-critique slasher, and coming-of-rage confessional.
What’s It About?
Clare Bleecker looks flawlessly ordinary: plaid skirt, neat ponytail, polite nods in homeroom. Under that veneer, she catalogs sin the way other teens track pop charts. Her mother vanished years ago—town rumor whispers murder or scandal; her father, numbed by loss, drifts through late-night infomercials and discount pinot. Alone in that emotional vacuum, Clare establishes a private code: she will remove malignant people the authorities overlook.
Her first kill is almost accidental—a drunken uncle who corners her during a Christmas visit. In the crack of a fireplace poker and a spray of pine needles, she discovers adrenaline can be sharper than fear. From then on, each victim is selected methodically: the varsity captain who drugs freshmen at basement parties; the biology teacher slipping test answers for sex; the sociopathic bully who drives a classmate to self-harm. Clare studies their routines before dawn, stashes tools in her locker (box cutter in a tampon case, chloroform in a travel-size hairspray bottle), and produces airtight alibis—usually SAT prep sessions and flawlessly forged study-hall signatures. Post-kill trophies—earrings, monogrammed tie pins, an engraved Zippo—hide in a shoebox beneath pastel stuffed llamas.
Everything shifts the morning Lacey Rawlins transfers to St. Michael’s. Lacey is sunshine in combat boots, sharp enough to clock Clare’s carefully modulated smiles. Assigned as Lacey’s “welcome buddy,” Clare discovers the dizzy ache of potential friendship—and maybe something warmer. She tries to keep Lacey outside the blood-streaked circle, but small-town gossip reveals patterns: suspicious “accidents,” victims all linked to St. Michael’s. Detective Walter Harlow, a visiting homicide cop “consulting” on cold cases, sniffs around the school chapel during weekday confessions.
Clare’s latest target, Board-Member Wesley Crane, embezzles tuition funds and grooms altar servers. She plans to frame Crane’s death as a drunk-driving wreck off a snowy bridge. But the operation unravels: icy roads scatter tire tracks, Crane survives long enough to claw her forearm, and Harlow’s cruiser appears in her rearview. She dumps the evidence barrels into the frozen river and limps home, leaving DNA breadcrumbs.
Harlow’s investigation squeezes the school; locker searches, DNA swabs, mandatory counseling. Lacey confronts Clare about the bite-size bruises and late-night disappearances. In a shattered midnight conversation by the frozen football field, Clare admits pieces of her truth—enough to scare Lacey but also entangle her. Lacey, armed with compassion and a flash-drive of surveillance footage she lifted from the guidance office, demands Clare choose: run before she’s caged or let someone pull her back from the abyss.
Clare decides on one final cleanse—expose Crane publicly during the Christmas pageant attended by every donor, priest, and local reporter. She rigs projectors to broadcast Crane’s corruption files mid-halftime hymn, planning to let public outrage finish what her scalpel couldn’t. But Harlow corners her backstage, gun unholstered. He reveals he’s tracked juvenile vigilantes nationwide, recruiting them into covert black-ops work. He offers Clare a choice: prison bars or becoming a state-sponsored ghost. Clare bargains—Crane’s crimes go live to the audience, victims get justice, Lacey walks free, Dad gets protected relocation. Harlow agrees, intrigued by her composure.
Spotlights flicker, hush drops, and scandal explodes across giant screens. Crane flees in cuffs. Amid the chaos, Clare slips into Harlow’s unmarked SUV. In the passenger seat, she presses her bleeding wrist to her blazer, contemplating the horizon. Snow pelts the windshield like static; Lacey watches from the auditorium doors, tears steaming in cold air. Clare’s final internal line: “Monsters get cages. Predators get correction. Maybe I’ll be both.” Fade to black, sequels implied.
What This Chick Thinks
Razor-Edged Voice, Darkly Funny
Clare’s narration is ice-bath crisp—clinical observations, wicked one-liners, zero pity for hypocrites. I laughed, winced, then questioned my moral compass when I found myself cheering her on.
Teen Angst Meets Vigilante Ethics
Roff captures teen isolation—cafeteria hierarchies, absentee parents—then channels it into a moral thought experiment: when institutions fail vulnerable kids, who gets to swing the axe?
Atmosphere Saturated with Dread
Snow-packed streets, echoing church halls, fluorescent classroom glare—mundane spaces hum with menace. It’s Stephen King suburbia through a TikTok lens.
High-Octane Final Act
The last fifty pages rocket: cover-ups unravel, friendship fractures, and that ethically grubby recruitment twist begs for sequel territory.
Minor Over-the-Top Flare
Harlow’s black-ops offer dips into pulp comic territory—but after so much razor realism, I chalked it up to dark-comedy flair rather than a deal breaker.
Final Thoughts
Clare at Sixteen is a blood-spattered coming-of-age that dares you to root for a teenage vigilante while interrogating the systems that birth monsters. Gory, sharp, and strangely heartfelt, it’s perfect for readers who like their YA served with equal parts moral complexity and midnight-movie fun.
Rating: 8.5/10
Try it if you like:
- My Sister, the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite – Dark sibling loyalty and razor-sharp wit.
- Sadie – Courtney Summers – A teen on a gritty road to vengeance when institutions fail.
- You – Caroline Kepnes – Disturbingly charming narrator whose justifications pull you in even as you recoil.
