You know when you’re watching a scary movie and you find yourself saying, “Don’t go up the stairs,” because you know what’s waiting for the final girlYou know when you’re watching a scary movie and you find yourself saying, “Don’t go up the stairs,” because you know what’s waiting for the final girl up there? Repeat that sentiment and innumerable amount of times and add a great deal of indignant revulsion for what happened to the women who were the victims of “Ethan Schuman” and that’s a large part of what it felt like to read this book.
The rest of it? It doesn’t feel like justice, but real life never quite does when it comes to injustices committed against women.
Reading the first half of this book had me nauseated as I immersed myself in how three women walked right into this trap almost any woman could have walked into and were, at first, psychologically manipulated and then emotionally abused by a sociopath who seemed to not want anything from but their attention and didn’t seem to care how much they were hurting. “Ethan Schuman” managed to break these women down even though they’d never even met.
The rest of the book is an angry and vulnerable look into how these three women tried (and ultimately failed) to bring the real human behind the “Ethan Schuman” persona to account for what had been done to them and many other women and how that person kept trying to keep and/or bring these women back into orbit.
When all else failed, one of them wrote a book. It’s really good.
Thanks go to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a finished copy of this title via their influencer program. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you!
File Under: 5 Star Review/Memoir/Nonfiction/True Crime ...more
Here we go with another book that ensnared me with magic words like “art thief”, “stolen artifacts”, and “anthropology”. What can I say? I’m a sucker Here we go with another book that ensnared me with magic words like “art thief”, “stolen artifacts”, and “anthropology”. What can I say? I’m a sucker for thievery by academics…well, for thievery in general. If you add in outer space, it’s like book catnip! I blame Doctor Who.
Thanks to Bria Strothers at Flatiron Books, I was granted access to the eARC and sent a copy of the physical ARC of this book after my request had sat in NetGalley’s pending request pit forever, and I’m so grateful because I absolutely loved this book!
There’s a line deep into this book that is sticking with me. One could say it’s a throwaway line, but it speaks so much to the themes in this story: “Primitive is more permanent”. That is to say: The longer it took and the harder it was to create something, the more permanent it is. This is also applicable to everything from planets to moons to species: the longer they’ve been around and the more adversity they’ve seen, the more knowledge they’ve gathered and the more permanent their mark on the universe. There is no up and down in space. No time. There is only distance, and some things are too far away to ever be rescued or remembered. Who’s to know if it’s better that way or not?
In many ways, this book feels like a deep space “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. Maya has been longing to find the Stardust Grail for the sake of her best friend, Auncle, for a long time. Auncle shows up with a scrappy crew and picks up Maya, who has a lead, and they’re off to search for this artifact, which means one thing to Auncle and Maya and something else to the interstellar military officials that are hot on their tails and after the same thing they are. The groups cross paths several times. The book is quite fast-paced, but not to the point of frenetic, which is a good thing, because there are times when emotion and connection need to happen and be absorbed in order for this book to work on all levels.
The climactic scenes in this book are astoundingly well-written and choreographed. It’s a complicated scenario that had to be hard to keep track of and it was executed brilliantly. I was absolutely thrilled with the whole thing.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley, Flatiron Books, and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
Under certain circumstances Ruby is, but her friend Val is definitely the type to break the rules. FlaunAre you the type of person to break the rules?
Under certain circumstances Ruby is, but her friend Val is definitely the type to break the rules. Flaunt them, even. Val’s an attention-seeker and a risk-taker. When on a school trip to Paris, Val nabs them an invite to a party down in the catacombs, but that’s a bridge too far for Ruby. When Val decides to risk it and go by herself, Ruby chases her down to try and stop a possible disaster before it happens; however, her ex-bestie and the class valedictorian insist on coming with to make sure both girls return. Val is excited, Ruby is reluctantly intrigued, and their escort is promising they’ll only be gone for a few hours and when else will they get this kind of adventure? Doesn’t a lack of fully-formed impulse-control centers suck?
I was never a person that felt a need to conform when I was a teenager, but I’m familiar with the feeling of chafing at the bit, of wanting to be let loose from the restraints that are holding you back and explore the world without constant supervision over your shoulder. That’s what this book reminded me of: The rush of adrenaline that comes from being out in the world for the first time but also the feeling that follows soon after once the adrenaline wears off resounding throughout your psyche telling you it’s too much too soon and you still need your support systems. At your age you shouldn’t have to be alone. You weren’t meant to be.
Diana Urban never lets me down in writing perfectly-paced and well-plotted YA thrillers. My favorite of hers still remains These Deadly Games for the sheer mind-screwiness, but the pacing and suspense in this book absolutely thrums with intensity. Part of the genius behind this book I guarantee is due to Urban’s love of the subject in conjunction with her dedicated research to the topic. The other part of the credit I feel can only be due to her insane dedication to atmospheric detail: the darkness, the claustrophobic nature of the catacombs, humanity’s inherent fear of being trapped underground, our collective beliefs surrounding the dead and death, and engagement of the senses in such foreign spaces.
This book is definitely more plot-forward than character, but that doesn’t mean the characters are flat. They’re not fully-realized, adult humans, but no teenager is. I liked that they’re not completely cynical, world-weary, or sexualized. They’re not without their trauma at the start of this book, but it’s the manageable kind. Which is good, because they’re not leaving this book in that shape.
It’s another really solid read from Diana Urban, and now I’m going to have to sit here and wait until she delivers another great thriller.
I was provided a copy of this title by Netgalley and the author. I was also provided a finished copy by the publisher and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: YA Fiction/YA Suspense/YA Thriller ...more
I really wanted to love this book because magical realism and speculative fiction are my favorite genres and because the plot sounded somewhat akin toI really wanted to love this book because magical realism and speculative fiction are my favorite genres and because the plot sounded somewhat akin to one of my favorite reads of 2022, Self-Portrait with Nothing. I was so grateful when Mulholland Books reached out to me and asked if I’d like a copy.
Sadly, there was more of the book I didn’t like than I did. The issue wasn’t with Lauren Beukes’ writing, because I enjoy her writing style–especially her talent for realistic and snarky dialogue. The issue also wasn’t with the plot, because that was why I was so interested in the book in the first place. My problem was with the multiple-POVs, the different storytelling styles (sometimes there are journal entries, sometimes there are letters, sometimes there are medical records, etc), and with the fact that we also have to deal with our characters jumping into different realities and becoming different people. It’s just so…crowded. Add in sections told from Bridge’s mom’s first-person POV in the past, and I just got so tired of all the voices when in truth I was only enjoying the entries from either Bridge or Dom’s (Bridge’s bestie) POV. Everyone else was just noise. I wanted the signal.
It’s a shame. Maybe I’ll come back to it another time when I feel like I have more patience to put up with it, but right now I just felt like this book was too many cooks in the dreamworm kitchen.
I was provided a physical copy of the uncorrected proof of this title by the author and Mulholland Book’s influencer program. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. ...more
You know what they say: Go big or go home. Clemence Michallon, who hasn’t written a thriller before or a novel in English before, certainly seems to hYou know what they say: Go big or go home. Clemence Michallon, who hasn’t written a thriller before or a novel in English before, certainly seems to have taken that saying to heart by writing this absolutely riveting, heartbreaking, intense, page-turning thriller that will now make me look as closely at white trucks as I did white vans when I was a child and remind readers that sometimes we don’t even truly know the people closest to us. The people we love and who love us.
This book is so carefully crafted by Michallon. You can tell this was a passion project for her. It’s mainly the story of the everyday life of a serial killer named Aidan who’s also a recent widower (cancer) and a single dad who’s having a hard time keeping his carefully constructed life under control since his former in-laws decided to sell the house he, his wife, and their daughter used to live in and he was forced to move everything closer to town–including the woman he had been keeping captive in a secure shed on the old property for five years he insisted on calling “Rachel”. Meticulous in nature, Aidan needs to be in control of everything and everyone, and living too close to the city allows for too many variables. The story of Aidan’s carefully constructed facade and how he loses control of all of it is told mainly from the POV of three women in his life: “Rachel” (who is moved into the new house, given a room and can move around, but has a GPS tracker she can’t removed and is chained to her radiator or bed every night even as Aidan continues to assault her in various ways), his daughter Cecilia (who loves her dad but doesn’t like him and is angry at him for not seeming to grieve her mother more), and a local restaurant owner named Emily who’s had a crush on Aidan since she was a teenager and since it looks like he’s finally giving her the time of day she’s going to go for it and shoot her shot. Little does she know Aidan’s been watching her for a while now. Slotted in here and there are little vignettes told from the POV of Aidan’s victims, their names disappearing just like their bodies do.
There is so much hopelessness and helplessness in this book when it comes to the triangle between Aidan, “Rachel”, and Cecilia. They say you have to find something redeeming about the antagonist in the story for it to truly work, and I actually did find myself sympathizing with Aidan a little bit. It was the control freak in me recognizing the control freak in him. I have to be in control of everything, mainly because that’s been my essential function for most of my life. If I’m not in control, or if I’m in control and something happens to upset the apple cart, I lose it. I certainly don’t need to do what he does to regain control, but there’s no doubt I’ve had panic attacks when everything starts to even feel like it’s not going to plan. The anger at putting so much planning and time and consideration into something only to have it only go to pot? Yeah, the anger, frustration, and feeling of genuine helplessness is real. Of course “Rachel” feels helpless and often hopeless, being held captive for all this time. She doesn’t even recognize herself when she looks in the mirror. She doesn’t know what combination of words will set Aidan off on one day and make him not horrible the next. Then there’s Cecilia, who feels helpless because she can’t make friends at her new school and hopeless because she can see her dad is going to move on and she can’t believe he’d do that. He doesn’t like to talk about her mom or let her look at her mom’s things. She’s still grieving and can’t understand why he isn’t.
The pacing is so nice and organically tense. There’s no artificial propulsion to this story. There is a little give here and there, but it’s just enough to let you take a breath because most of the time while you’re reading this book you’ll find you’re holding it. You’re not going to want to put it down, because you might even not think to. I know I didn’t. I picked it up and only put it down long enough to put together cheese and crackers for lunch to eat…while I kept reading.
The climax of this story will make your heart race and will have your eyes glued to the page. My heart was even racing a little. It’s a serious case of life or death and will she? Will she? Can she? Can she?
I feel utterly spoiled by this book. I’m officially a Clemence Michallon fan girl and I need more from her.
I was provided a copy of the eARC of this title by NetGalley and the author and provided a finished copy by the folks over at Knopf Publishing. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Kidnapping/Murder Thriller/Psychological Thriller/Serial Killers/Suspense Thriller/Thriller ...more
I love art heists. Well, I love the tales of art heists, really. In reality, I’m not really into the idea of stealing things that don’t belong to you,I love art heists. Well, I love the tales of art heists, really. In reality, I’m not really into the idea of stealing things that don’t belong to you, but there’s something so cool about the idea of art thieves, those daring people who seem to be able to make expensive works of art disappear into thin air. At the end of the day, though, all art thieves end up being are just regular thieves who happened to study their target very well.
Not Stephane Breitwieser, though. Stephane Breitwiser stole art because he was so struck by its beauty that he felt overcome by the need to have it close to him where he could admire it every single day. He never intended to sell it or damage it. Oftentimes accompanied by his girlfriend, Anne-Catherine, Breitwieser carried out more than two hundred heists over nearly eight years, stealing more than three hundred objects, making him the world’s most prolific art thief.
Breitwieser never used violence or broke into a museum to carry out a single heist: Every single object was lifted during business hours without harming a single person. Risks were sometimes taken, and close calls happened. In the end, Stephane and Anne-Catherine almost always simply strolled away from each scene, sometimes with several art objects on their persons.
Finkel does an excellent job of writing up how each heist was carried out, letting us readers feel the suspense, the stress, and the thrill of racing against the clock to obtain each object before the couple is caught by a guard, camera, or another patron. We get to feel the desperation that comes with quick-thinking when Breitwieser suddenly realizes the crossbow he has lifted can’t be smuggled out the front door like he planned, so he opens a window and drops it gently into some bushes below so he can retrieve it once he’s outside. And we get to feel Breitwiser’s disdain for poor security when art objects are put inside old cabinets that can easily be tricked into opening.
What’s most interesting is Breitwieser himself, who is at heart a momma’s boy who never learned the word “no” and never learned to do things for himself. It left him a loafer who never felt he had to work, which allowed him to live on government assistance and monetary gifts from his doting grandparents even while his mother and girlfriend worked and he reveled in his stolen hoard. He’s the definition of a self-serving narcissist, a man who must have the things he wants and what he wants is the only thing that matters. If he doesn’t get what he wants he slumps into episodes of what he might call depression but could also be described as pouting. He’s deluded himself into thinking he’s only borrowing these works of art and that he’ll give them back someday. He’s also deluded himself into thinking he’ll never be caught and that his loved ones will always stick by him, as is evident in what happened to his relationship with Anne-Catherine and his mother when he was finally caught.
In the end, The Art Thief is an entertaining and almost cinematic look at a man with a case of Peter Pan syndrome who saw the art world as his playground, his bedroom as Ali Baba’s cave, and thought he’d live happily ever after. Sadly, he’s just another man who needed to grow up.
I was provided an electronic copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. I was also provided a finished copy by the folks at A. A. Knopf. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
I have a bit of an obsession with the Pacific Crest Trail. I live so close to it. I can get to a trailhead in less than two hours, if I want. I had plI have a bit of an obsession with the Pacific Crest Trail. I live so close to it. I can get to a trailhead in less than two hours, if I want. I had plans to backpack a large section of it at one point (but then I was diagnosed with epilepsy and my doctors told me that wasn’t such a good idea) and that’s about 33% of the reason I wanted to read this book. Another 33% is my fascination with stories about missing hikers and the other 33% was based simply on the blurb. Then let’s just allow a negligible amount there just for me liking true crime. Let me tell you: This book is absolutely fantastic.
Andrea Lankford may be a former park ranger for the NPS that worked as a cop, an investigator, a firefighter, and a wilderness medic, but she’s also a very talented writer. I found her earnestness refreshing compared to some other writers in this genre and connected ones. Lankford lets us readers hear her vulnerability, frustration, exhaustion, fear, anger, regret, and more as she helps her compatriots search for lost hikers over the course of a few years. Lankford is level-headed and almost cynical after her years in the NPS and as an investigator, yet she can’t help but get wrapped up sometimes in the excitement of new technology that will help them search, or dive deep into research when a really good lead comes around. In turn, we also witness how dispirited and angry she gets when good money goes into resources that definitely weren’t worth it, watch as people get hurt or fall ill during searches, and look on as she sees the families of the missing hikers come around to the the same thing she already knows: that the government basically doesn’t have the resources to look for missing hikers and they usually don’t even care.
This book isn’t about Andrea Lankford, though, as fascinating as she is. It’s about the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), the hiking culture, the main three missing hikers they’re looking for, how they all came together to look for them, how social media has both helped and hindered searches for missing hikers, about different methodologies to search for missing hikers, the dangers that come with being the searchers, how hard it is to resist following up on every lead even though you know it’s probably going to end up being a dead end, and the importance of knowing when it’s time to stop actively looking.
The stories told in this book are fascinating and the people are absolutely remarkable. There are some absolutely powerful and tenacious people in this book and some absolutely horrible people. There are startling stories involving wildlife and a complicated one involving a cult. There’s the dangers of cannabis farms, illegal opium poppy operations, wildfires, illegal mushroom hunting, and trail trolls. There’s also the majesty of Mount Rainier, the rainforests of Washington, the weird beauty of an abandoned Buddhist temple, the surprising tasty hardiness of a cult-made nutrition bar, and camaraderie over many campfires and glasses of wine.
All at once a biography of missing hikers, their families, and the people who search for them, a memoir of Lankford’s experience with this group, and a short history discourse on the PCT and hiking culture, you couldn’t ask for a book that will simultaneously entertain you and break your heart.
I’d like to thank Hachette Books for providing me a copy of the physical ARC of this book via their influencer program. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Biography/History/Memoir/Nonfiction/True Crime ...more
The cover promises way more thrills than the book actually delivers.
The problem with The Followers isn’t the plot, because it’s actually a really gooThe cover promises way more thrills than the book actually delivers.
The problem with The Followers isn’t the plot, because it’s actually a really good plot. The issue is the characters. Not only does one of the two female protagonists not seem to know how to Google or have any semblance of common sense even though she’s an influencer with millions of followers, but I just couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I just didn’t identify with them and, as a result, I was just very bored.
I also didn’t care about (and was really annoyed by) all the snippets of chats or forums full of hate for Molly. They ripped me out of the story and were annoying. I’m seeing this method of exposition used in more and more books and I’ve ended up rating every book that uses this method lower than other books I read. An infodump is an infodump. Readers aren’t dumb.
So I’d like to say this book is terrific and groundbreaking, but it’s simply very average.
Thanks to Blackstone Publishing and Bradleigh Godfrey for sending me a copy of the physical ARC of this book for review. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Personal policy dictates that since this title earned a three star or lower rating this review will not appear on any of my social media channels or any bookseller websites. ...more
On the day the physical ARC of this dark, twisted, and audaciously funny novel showed up on my doorstep I knew I was going to love it when I read it sOn the day the physical ARC of this dark, twisted, and audaciously funny novel showed up on my doorstep I knew I was going to love it when I read it simply from one little thing that has since been removed from the cover but was on my copy: If you look in the lower left hand corner of my picture, in very fine print, it says, “For legal purposes: a novel”.
Cheeky. I snickered over that small bit of fine print for a little bit and even took a pic of it and sent it to my bestie because I thought it was that cheeky.
How to Kill Men and Get Away With It isn’t a cheeky book, however. It’s dark, twisted, wicked smart, tragically funny, merciless in its anger, and unforgiving in its social criticisms. Katy Brent managed that rare feat of literary alchemy of perfectly weaving exposition into narrative without skipping a beat or losing a single bit of momentum in what had to have been a hard book to keep on track and keep even in both tone and pacing.
While men are the most obvious target of anger and criticism in this book, don’t think that a single character (including Kitty, our protagonist), is immune to being a target of the book’s criticisms. The second largest set of people this book targets with anger and criticism are people who are glued to their social media accounts and what they’ll do to grow their accounts, keep their followers, and keep the money from collaborations and sponcon coming in. The third largest set of people to be razed and criticized are the rich and their tendency to do things purely for the power of virtue signaling (eco-tourism, holding huge charity galas, visiting orphanages in war-torn countries, adopting war orphans only to have nannies raise them, etc).
Kitty Collins is the vegan heiress to a meat corporation. She’s been on her own since she was 18 and her mom moved to the south of France. Her dad went missing a couple of years before then. Kitty may be rich, but her posh apartment was set up for her by her mom before she left the UK and Kitty doesn’t spend any of the money she gets from being the heir to what she thinks of as blood money: she gets plenty of money and free products from just being Kitty Collins, one of the most popular influencers on Instagram. Her only family are her fellow astronomically-high follower count influencers, who she fully admits all have eating disorders, daddy issues, and absolutely have love affairs with alcohol and drugs of different shapes and sizes. They don’t tend to hang around other people, because who else is really worth their time?
Kitty doesn’t really like people, but especially men. When one follows her out of a bar after she turns down his advances they have a physical argument and the man falls onto a broken half of a champagne bottle, which goes straight into a major artery. Kitty can’t help him and knows it wasn’t completely her fault, so she leaves the man there and goes home.
The next day, she feels revitalized. She feels like she’s glowing. She doesn’t feel any guilt or remorse for what happened. She feels energetic and better than she has in some time. She took out a predator. A man who wanted to take what she wasn’t willing to give. She has no issue with that. She wouldn’t change a thing.
I love how Katy Brent engineers Kitty Collins’ “code” for killing to make it look like Kitty is doing her own kind of virtue signaling by committing these vigilante murders: No kids, no women, no disabled people, no veterans, no homeless people, etc. As if murder isn’t murder no matter how you frame it. Not to mention, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and rules were made to be broken. As Kitty sits down to write herself her “code”, you can’t help but get the feeling that this code is going to come back and bite her in the butt later. You have to be careful with murder. You can’t risk recklessness. That’s how you get caught.
The barbed, mocking tone that permeates this book is a joy to read simply because it matches up so nicely with the vacuousness of social media culture. Think of how easy it is to mock the people who are famous simply for being…them? How does one get famous and rich simply for being spotted at that one party that one night at the same time as that one celebrity and now somehow they have 10K more followers on Insta and are being sent sponcon and asked to collaborate for companies that aren’t scams? But once you’re up there with the influencers who have more followers than the population of a decent-sized city, what else is there? Who else is there? All day, every day, you’re just treated like an empty piece of meat for the public to consume. What will you do about it?
I was provided a digital galley of this title by NetGalley and the author. I was also provided a physical ARC of this title by the folks at HarperCollins through their influencer program. All thoughts, opinions, ideas, and views expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
In theory, I love noir mysteries. In reality, I need to be in the mood and have enough patience for them, because a good noir mystery can’t be rushed In theory, I love noir mysteries. In reality, I need to be in the mood and have enough patience for them, because a good noir mystery can’t be rushed and I’m very impatient and prone to distraction.
I will tell you it took me a lot of patience for me to read this book, because it definitely isn’t a book you will want to rush through and it isn’t one that will allow you to do so anyway. I will also tell you it took me almost two whole days of off and on reading to finish the book, which is a long time for me (just me, I know I’m weird and everyone thinks I must be a robot for being able to read more than one book a day) and I still loved the book, so that means it was really worth taking my time with this terrific neon-noir murder mystery.
Heck, even simply calling it a “neon-noir murder mystery” seems like shortchanging it. It’s closer to “neon-noir murder mystery conspiracy thriller suspense novel”. There’s a genre mashup for you.
Jordan Harper writes like he’s an architect: He builds this book using bricks made up of some of the most striking and sharp sentences I’ve seen in quite some time. I stopped more than once to re-read some of the sentences or to read them aloud because they were just that hot. And then those amazing sentences helped to make up well-structured paragraphs that housed this heavy, sordid, dark story of people who have enough money that humanity means nothing to them anymore, the people who are employed to make sure secrets stay secret, and a race to both try and save the day and see if there’s such a thing as redemption after a certain point in your life.
If you’re looking for levity in any way, don’t look here. While there is humor in this book, it’s the humor borne of cynicism and seeing too much bad in the world. It’s gallows humor, heavy sarcasm, and sometimes even crude. It’s all right in line with the tone of the book and the characters, but this book isn’t written for the laughs–it’s written for the tragedy and sins of the rich, the famous, and the people who take out the trash.
I’m trying to think of everything I could say about this book, but keeping in mind the genre, I don’t want to spoil anything. Let’s just say it’s a long ride, but it’s a wild one, and at the end you’re not going to regret taking your time with this one.
Mulholland Books provided me with access to this title. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. Thank you.
File Under: Crime Fiction/Noir/Mystery/Thriller/Crime Thriller/5 Star Reads ...more
I tried to like this book. I really did. But by 20 minutes into what was supposed to be an espionage thriller with some serial killer elements thrown I tried to like this book. I really did. But by 20 minutes into what was supposed to be an espionage thriller with some serial killer elements thrown in, I was bored out of my mind.
And the real story hadn’t even begun yet. Our protagonist, for lack of a better way to sum it up, hadn’t even accepted the call to adventure. More time in that 20% of story was spent describing how cold Belarus is than on the story itself.
We get it. Belarus is really cold.
This book is scattered, with no real through line and no steady story arc to hold the entire thing together. It’s like a whole bunch of really good thoughts that really needed a competent, solid editor to put their foot down and demand everything be brought together into something more cohesive. The book, as it exists, is like a tangled head of hair that needs to be brushed.
I just don’t understand how you can take this concept and make it so bland and, well, lost. I’m actually a little mad Kathleen Kent took such potential and wasted it.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, and opinions contained herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Owing to the 3 star or under rating, this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller website. ...more
I started taking notes on this book, as I do with all nonfiction books I read and review, and I think the notes I took for Part One (which consists ofI started taking notes on this book, as I do with all nonfiction books I read and review, and I think the notes I took for Part One (which consists of the first four chapters) summarize my feelings about this book almost perfectly: “Slow, dry, and rather uninteresting. Doesn’t grab your attention and is told with about as much passion as a textbook.”
Look. I know we’re not going to be reading contemporary true crime here, with fresh memories and interviews from the people who were there. Those people are long gone now. But you can still write historical true crime and make it feel fresh, interesting, relevant, malevolent, sinister, scandalous, thrilling, and horrific even if it happened even before the times of the infamous Black Dahlia.
America loves true crime. Scratch that. America loves crime. We reads tome after tome about it, both in fiction and nonfiction. We watch endless movies, documentaries, docuseries, and procedural dramas about it. We use the internet to research forensics and pathology so we know how murderers get away with it. We listen to innumerable podcasts about it. Serial killers have fan clubs. There are reality shows dedicated to loving criminals, both in jail and out. Heck, when I originally graduated high school and went to community college I was a psychology major who had her eye on being an FBI profiler, and that was before “Criminal Minds” was even a glimmer in CBS’ eye (I was actually inspired by the TV show “Profiler”).
Keeping that in mind, If you’re going to write such an intensive and research-rich book about such infamous historical killers as Leopold and Loeb, you need to give your readers something more to look forward to than a book that reads almost as dry as a college textbook.
Sure, there’s some cool little inconsequential tidbits in here: the bit about future actor Will Geer possibly having a crush on Loeb, the fact that Leopold and I are both members of Phi Beta Kappa (the academic honor society with lifelong membership). There’s no denying the sheer time and energy put into the impeccable research done for this book is not only important but impressive shouldn’t be denied. In fact, if you value the research over the story of their lives and crimes you might enjoy this book more than I did. Sadly, I found myself constantly putting it down due to sheer boredom.
I also give appreciation where appreciation is due and applaud both King and Wilson for not flinching away from any of the less savory details of the case, or from the toxic and abusive homosexual relationship between Leopold and Loeb. While it’s pretty clear from research, interviews, evaluations, and writings that Leopold was a sadistic sociopath from early on in his life, it’s equally apparent Loeb was a pretty piece of prey left in the playgrounds of Chicago for Leopold to pick up and shape to his will. There was a master, and there was a servant.
All of this could have made for some captivating and compelling writing, propelling us readers through the investigation and trial, unraveling the folie a deux between this pair of entitled and privileged rich white boys whose parents had neither time nor inclination to actually parent their own children and left them at the not-so-tender mercies of people who had no business raising children, with devastating results. Ivory towers fall every day. And this book could’ve been so much better if it had told that story instead of this slow-paced and dry retelling of almost every moment of their lives in a completely linear manner.
This book has been reviewed as part of the #SMPInfluencer Program in connection with St. Martin’s Press. Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with the physical copy in advance in exchange for a fair and honest review. Due to the 3 star or lower rating this review will not be posted on any social media or bookseller websites. This is my personal policy as a ARC and book reviewer. ...more
This book is like a bombardment of missives and missiles launched all at once from one relatively slim package. “Bad City” isn’t the longest investigaThis book is like a bombardment of missives and missiles launched all at once from one relatively slim package. “Bad City” isn’t the longest investigative, true-crime novel I’ve ever read, but it sure does pack one heck of a punch for the words it contains.
But that’s what you get when you put a lifelong, seriously-dedicated investigative reporter who relishes the world of newspaper journalism (me too, for that matter) behind a keyboard and leave it to them to tell the story of how they came about catching and then publishing two of the biggest stories of their career (and the careers of several other people, too), both being intrinsically tied to the beleaguered University of Southern California (for the record, I’ve lived in California all my life and although I live in NorCal it’s kind of considered common knowledge around these parts that USC is corrupt. Sorry, but it’s true).
Journalists learn to pack as much of a message into as few words as they can. Column inches cost money, people! If you want the front page headline, you had better be sure your story is worth the extra inches those large, attention-attracting letters are going to cost the paper. This concise manner of writing is something I value greatly when I read investigative true-crime books like this. It reads like some of my favorite long-form investigative reports from Reveal News, but without the hyperlinks and infographics. It’s better for that, I think, because it allows someone like me (hello ADD) to stick solely to the words, to sink into the story and really inhale the inherent corruption that is Los Angeles (which is more Sin City than Las Vegas is, in my opinion) without any distractions. Not even a single picture graces the pages of this book and I am completely grateful.
Pringle may not be a creature born and bred in Los Angeles, but he understands the smog isn’t something that only hovers over the basin like a sickly miasma: Los Angeles is sickly, sallow city full of predators, prey, monsters, angels, the debased, and the innocent. Most of all, it’s full of the hilariously rich and the heartbreakingly poor. Los Angeles is a city full of symbiotic and parasitic relationships. It’s a beautiful city, full of beautiful people, but just like every Hollywood special effect, makeup design, or period costume, it’s all superficial. At its heart, Los Angeles is just like every other major metropolitan area in the world: an asphalt jungle full of people hungry for more of something: pick your poison. Pringle gets that, and that makes him an incredibly effective reporter. Well, that, and persistence: one of the most important weapons in a reporter’s arsenal. Pringle leaves no doubt in the writing of this book how doggedly persistent he and his fellow writers were while investigating and writing this story: persistent to the point of turning their entire paper upside down in pursuit of publishing their report without it being ripped apart by upper muckity-mucks who were obviously under the sway of conflict of interest from USC officials.
If I had a single complaint about this book it would be including, even if it was briefly, a small section on Operation Varsity Blues, the DOJ-FBI case that stretched across the country and implicated several private universities (including, most prominently, USC) and many rich (and sometimes famous) parents who used a “recruiter” middleman to bribe universities into accepting their children into their desired schools when their test scores weren’t up to par under the guise of them being athletes (even if they weren’t athletes at all). This book had more than enough scandal, sleaze, and salaciousness to cover between the two major cases it had already covered. Including Operation Varsity Blues not only seemed like overkill, but it also felt very tacked on. It felt like a puzzle piece that just doesn’t fit right. Like you think you have the right piece but it’s just a little too loose or a little too tight. It just should’ve been left out.
I’d like to thank Celadon Books for initially reaching out to me and offering me a finished copy of this book, since they were not sending out galleys and were only offering copies to certain readers who were still interested if they liked the first 50 pages. I liked the first 50 pages so much I immediately said yes. So thank you, Celadon, for this opportunity. ...more
For all its solid writing style and small town charm, I found “Leaving Halberd Peak” to simply not be my cup of tea. I know for sure there will be pleFor all its solid writing style and small town charm, I found “Leaving Halberd Peak” to simply not be my cup of tea. I know for sure there will be plenty of fans for this debut book by a debut independent author, especially if those readers are fans of contemporary, small town romances with a medium-to-slow burn, but personally I tend to be very picky about. Sadly, I had a whole lot about this book to pick at.
For one, I felt the book was far too long. I felt as if the author could have dropped around 50 pages and we likely wouldn’t have known the difference. Two, I hate slow burns and I didn’t feel as if our two main characters (Sam and Gretchen) had much chemistry at all. Three, some of the supporting characters were downright annoying to the point where I dreaded when they came on the page again. Four, I am picky about books billed as being “k!nky”, because that adjective is very subjective, and to me this book wasn’t k!nky at all. Seeing as one of the reasons I was interested in reading it was that aspect of the plot, I was disappointed.
I encourage Rowan Helaine to keep writing and to keep working on finding their literary voice. I have a feeling there is something here in this book that is truly the heart of their writing style and the shape of what is to come from them in the future. Just because a jaded, lust-addled, k!nky af, decades-long reader of romances of all genres didn’t immediately fall in love with this title doesn’t mean I can’t be converted in the future. I wish Helaine all the best in their career.
Thanks to Rowan Helaine for reaching out to me directly and providing me a copy of this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. Due to personal policy, this review will not be posted on any social media or bookseller websites due to the 3 star or lower rating. This is standard protocol for all my book reviews. ...more
Going into this book, it’s important to note that it’s not strictly a true crime novel. You might get the idea that it is, given that the subscript ofGoing into this book, it’s important to note that it’s not strictly a true crime novel. You might get the idea that it is, given that the subscript of the title starts off with the names of the now-infamous names of accused murderers Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell (neither have stood trial yet–they will stand trial together in a death penalty case starting in January 2023), but this book is as much a history, theology, and sociology lesson as it is a true crime story. I’m sure that after the trial has played out we will see a glut of true crime books about this case, but Sotille has jumped into the fray early by covering who Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow were, where they came from, what they believed, how they came to believe the things they did, and to cover all the players in their lives from their births up until their arrests.
In order to understand Daybell and Vallow, Sotille determined readers needed to understand the entire history of the Church of Latter-Day Saints (including all their splinter groups and controversies of differing kinds), cults of all shapes and sizes, the Book of Revelations (at length), Doomsday Preppers, and more. Woven into these dense lessons is the tale of how two people, both Mormon but raised on different fringes of the LDS doctrine, eventually wove their way through weird and self-centered lives until the day Lori Vallow sought out Chad Daybell at a book signing and captivated him with her beauty and charisma. From there, these two people become a perfect storm of power and influence over others that ultimately leads to self-delusion, mental instability, and criminal activity.
I felt myself kind of drifting away from the book during the denser parts, especially the very long section on the history of the Mormon Church, but that could be due to my own membership in the same church during my late teens (spoiler: I got excommunicated) and have a bias against a lot of their practices (also, I know a lot of the information the author was communicating). It was also a lot of information to be communicating in a dense block like that when a reader maybe wasn’t expecting a primer on the LDS church. But, as a reader, I can see where knowing that history was necessary to understanding both Vallow and Daybell. Their belief system played a huge role in who they were, who they became, and what they ended up doing.
In general, it’s a decent read if you want to know the background of the Vallow and Daybell case. If you are looking for strictly true crime, I’d wait until the trial is over and all the information has come to light.
Thanks to Hachette Book Group and Twelve Books for sending me a finished copy of this book! ...more
Okay, so, I’ve always said Australia is the one place in the world I’ve never desired to travel to because it seems like just about everything that liOkay, so, I’ve always said Australia is the one place in the world I’ve never desired to travel to because it seems like just about everything that lives there is designed to make you die a terrible death, but this book also reminds me of Australia’s bloody and violent past, it’s present-day issues with racism and misogyny, and highlights (ever so briefly) the dangers of gaslighting and how it can erode away at your instincts and inherent will.
At its heart, “The Island” is most simply described as a crime thriller, but I actually think it verges kind of close to being a horror novel, too. If anything, it might almost straddle that fine line between thriller and horror that some novels do, which is fine by me. I like my thrillers taute, hard, fast-paced, violent, and no-holds-barred. This book starts out tense with some exhausting and questionable family bickering, leads up to a questionable decision made in haste, and from there it’s quite like one of the best kinds of thrill rides: up and down, slow where it needs to be and fast when it needs to be. The pacing is exactly correct and what very, very little filler there is fits in with the story and either calls back to the main story or will be relevant shortly in front of you as you read.
There is a small cast of main characters, a large cast of supporting characters, and a very large cast of what one might call corps de esprits. The cast of main characters is exactly the right size and each one is fleshed out distinctly and gets the appropriate amount of page time. The large cast of main characters is indeed very large, but we don’t need to know as much about them as we do our main characters. Even so, they are distinct enough from one another I had no issues telling who was who as I read, which can be an issue when a supporting cast is all-white and as large as it is. Even the scattered corps de esprit characters are easy to determine one from another, which is a grace not one usually gets when there are this many people who have names and have speaking lines in a novel.
This was a sharp, smart, and cunning novel that pulls no punches with its characters or with the reader. It was a great read I devoured. I highly recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Company for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thank you to Little, Brown Company for also sending me a complimentary physical copy of this novel. ...more
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