I was up at 2 AM finishing a logo redesign I'd been procrastinating on for days - deadline morning, obviously - and I needed something to keep me company that wasn't another true crime podcast where some bro narrator tries to be edgy about women's murders. So I started Babysitter. And by 4 AM I wasn't thinking about the logo anymore. I was sitting cross-legged on my apartment floor with Frida in my lap, just... processing.
This book wrecked me, but not in the way I expected.
The Girl Who Just Wanted Someone to Show Up
Here's the thing nobody tells you about this book: the serial killer stuff is almost secondary. I mean, yes, Tony Costa murdered women and buried them in the Truro woods and the details are horrifying. But the real gut-punch is Liza's childhood. This little girl on Cape Cod in the 1960s whose mother is out dancing in Provincetown bars every night, who gets shuffled between motels and relatives, who is so starved for basic adult kindness that a handyman buying her a popsicle and taking her to his "secret garden" feels like love.
That's the part that made me cry. Not the murders. The neglect.
The book alternates between Liza's lonely summers and Tony Costa's increasingly disturbed backstory, and the structure works because you're watching two timelines on a collision course. You know exactly where this is going. You know who this charming babysitter really is. And still - STILL - when young Liza describes feeling safe with him, feeling seen by him, your stomach just drops. Because of course a neglected child would attach to the one adult who paid attention. Of course she would.
Abuela would have had so much to say about Liza's mother. She would've been furious. That particular brand of maternal absence - the mother who's physically nearby but emotionally checked out - Abuela had zero patience for it. She raised me while my own mom worked double shifts, but she was present. She showed up. Liza's mother just... didn't.
Two Narrators, Two Worlds Barely Touching
Aida Reluzco and Andi Arndt split the narration, and the dual setup maps to the book's alternating structure - one voice carries Liza's chapters, the other handles Costa's timeline and the investigation. It's a smart production choice because it keeps you oriented when the book jumps between decades and perspectives. Both performances are solid and restrained, which is exactly right for material this heavy. Nobody's going for theatrical shock. The tone stays grounded.
But - and I have to be honest here - neither narrator fully captures the emotional devastation that's sitting right there in the text. Reluzco handles young Liza's vulnerability well enough, and Arndt brings a steadiness to the crime narrative. They're competent and professional. What I wanted, though, was someone to crack open just a little during the scenes where Liza realizes decades later who her babysitter actually was. That moment of adult horror colliding with childhood innocence deserves a voice that trembles, even slightly. I didn't get that tremor. It stayed composed when I wanted it to break.
Maybe that's a narrator direction choice. Maybe the authors wanted clinical distance for the crime portions to bleed into everything else. I can respect it. But for me - someone who listens at 1.0x specifically to feel every emotional beat - the delivery kept me at arm's length during moments that should've pulled me under.
Where the Pacing Loses Its Nerve
At nine hours, this should be tight. And parts of it are - the sections on Costa's deteriorating mental state, the investigation, the discovery of remains in the forest. Those move. But the book sometimes gets caught between being Liza's memoir and being a true crime deep dive, and in trying to serve both, certain stretches feel curiously flat. Like the narrative can't quite decide if it trusts the reader to feel the horror through Liza's personal story alone, so it over-explains the crime timeline instead.
The strongest material is when those two threads are braided tight - when you're reading about Liza riding in Costa's truck to his spot in the woods, and you know what's buried there. THAT is where the book is devastating. When it pulls apart into separate biography-of-a-killer and memoir-of-a-neglected-child tracks, some urgency leaks out.
Who Needs to Hear This (and Who Should Brace Themselves)
If you've ever loved someone who turned out to be someone else entirely, this will hit different. If you grew up with absent parents and attached to whoever showed you kindness - yeah, bring tissues. But if you're coming for a straight true crime thriller, you might find it slower than expected. This is a rainy Sunday book, not a breathless binge. It asks you to sit with discomfort, not race through it.
Content warnings are serious here: murder, sexual assault, violence, child neglect. This isn't cozy true crime. Don't listen with kids around. I had a similar brace-yourself moment going into Unkindness of Ravens, which also refuses to let you get comfortable with the darkness it's serving.
The Design I'll Never Unsee
I keep thinking about that phrase - "secret garden." How something so innocent became something so sinister. This book felt like finding a beautiful photograph and then slowly realizing what's in the background. My heart. The girl in this story deserved so much better. And honestly? She still does.
