In The Reader Is the Protagonist, Karen Palmer is giving us a timeline of her domestic abusive relationship with her ex husband. She tells us about the time when her ex told her that he killed a man. He wasn't an ordinary man, he was a rapist. He thought he was being a hero when he killed the rapist. He thought killing the man as the right thing to do since he's used to killing people, since he was an army man. Him killing and protecting the girl shows irony. It's ironic because he protected the girl that was getting raped but he abused his own wife. He thinks himself as a hero when in fact he was acting the same way towards his wife by being abusive. He made his wife think he was someone else, a good person in the beginning of their marriage by saying, "baby, my life is an open book" to saying, "Never judge a book by its cover", showing his true side by being abusive and being drunk. I feel like he told his wife about this story to tell and show her what he's capable of.