The phrase toe cleavage probably isn’t in your daily vocabulary, and probably isn’t a phrase you’ve ever heard before, but it makes its appearance not once, not twice, but three times in Kate White’s “If Looks Could Kill.” From my understanding, it refers the the space in between the big toe and index, especially in a pair of sandals (insert vomiting face here).It’s probably worth mentioning that this book was published in 2002 and written by the then Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan, which may account for the (in my opinion) overuse of the phrase.

It is precisely because of the oddly dated phrases like toe cleavage that make “If Looks Could Kill” worth reading. The literary landscape (like all aspects of culture) has shifted over the past two decades, leaving books like “If Looks Could Kill” as markers of a different time.

Looking past the positively heinous use of two words that should never appear next to each other in a sentence, “If Looks Could Kill” is a delightful, if a bit mindless, murder mystery that centers on Bailey Weggins, a true crime and human interest writer who gets pulled into investigating the murder of her boss’s nanny.

Bailey (who’s name I genuinely forgot until about halfway through the book because basically no one ever calls her by her name) gets tangled up in a positively saucy murder that ends up involving a whole host of characters, from her older, gay neighbor Landon, to her boss’s young and hunky husband Jeff.

Bailey’s love life was another point of datedness that I found intriguing, considering today’s overreliance on dating apps and meeting people online. For most college aged people, it’s absolutely bonkers to think that leaving messages on someone’s home phone would be the best way to get in contact with the person you’re seeing about when to go on the next date, but Bailey does just that.

Part of the plot of “If Looks Could KIll” centers on Bailey’s boss Cat, the editor in chief of fashion magazine Gloss, who got her position after ousting the previous editor for being dated and old. Cat ushered in a new age at Gloss, and potentially upset a lot of people. Ironically, that is exactly what I thought of “If Looks Could Kill”: that it was dated and in need of a facelift, but I kind of loved it at the same time. It’s cringey and cliche, but in the best kind of way. Reading it is like hate watching your favorite 2000s rom com.

Kate White doesn’t mess around too much with the classic murder mystery set up in this regard, but she does throw a few curveballs when it comes to who the murderer truly is. There are plenty of red herrings, both in the form of characters who seem a little more suspicious than they actually are, and plotlines that seem like they have something to do with the murder and end up being completely innocent.

“If Looks Could Kill” leaves you guessing until the last possible second, before revealing who the true murderer is. The rapid pace of the ending slightly disappointed me because there isn’t time for the reader to really dwell on the mystery and connect the final few dots together before it all comes pouring out in the last pages of the book.

Maybe this is a personal preference not shared by other readers, but I like to have an ending that matches the pace of the book. The mystery is prolonged throughout the book and I wanted the ending to deliver on that same suspenseful note.

All that being said, I greatly enjoyed reading “If Looks Could Kill” and it effectively brought me out of a months-long reading slump. Kate White’s style of writing is engaging and funny, and its dated language and plot lines make it even more enjoyable to read, even if that means enduring some of the more painful aspects of 2000s culture (seriously, the toe cleavage).

Star rating: 4 stars
Cringe rating: 3.5 stars
Overall enjoyment: 5 stars