The Bad Seed

When I finished reading this book, I had the same response I had when I finished reading Make Room! Make Room! the book that Soylent Green is based on.

And that is the problem with finally getting around to reading the source material for a movie you absolutely adored. The first time I saw the gloriously, campy 1956 version of The Bad Seed I fell in love with the movie so hard I swore at that moment I was going to name my first daughter, Ingo, after the wonderful Final Girl Ingo Denker, who survived the murder of her entire family by her mother through intelligence and a little luck. I fund the ending of that movie to be possibly one of the greatest examples of Devine retribution (or karma, if that is the way you swing) to ever grace the silver screen. Imagine how disappointed I was that there was no character named Ingo, and there sure a shoot was no retribution, Devine or otherwise at the end of the novel!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading this book immensely. If anything, the Rhoda in this book is even more sociopathic than the Rhoda in the movie. The scene where Rhoda takes care of the apartment caretaker, Leroy, is so horrific, I still shiver at the thought of it. And that poor puppy! For the most part the movie was pretty truthful to the source material, except for the ending. The ending of the book leaves the reader with a much more pessimistic outlook on life.