Melissa Bond's Reviews > Cruel Sacrifice

I remember hearing about this case when I was a teenager, when 'satanic panic' and homophobia was at an all-time high regarding crimes involving teens, and of course it made for sensational courtroom drama for the adults. This story is horrific & certainly gives insight into how young children start exploring their sexuality, how far bullying can go, and how psychology is no more closer today in determining what factors create a killer & just how much we rely on such faulty science to determine the culpability of criminals. The pain the Sharer family endured continues today, with the mean girls, now women, are still not completely owning to their crimes. This story is a cautionary tale of how far bullying can go, and gives one insight into the problems facing youth today when the mob mentality sets in, instead today it is for the entire world to see. As for the writing, there are two books written about this case, of which I understand the other is far better written than this one. The writing is not well organized, often seeming like summarized notes, rather than the full picture which came across simple and hurried. Jones spends way too much time on the history of one of the girls, where the focus of the book seemed to be, rather than the victim, the history, the crime and the court proceedings. It was clear to tell Jones was rather obsessed with Loveless, and seemed to argue a case of her guilt by the environment she was born into. I have never believed an adult is a product of their childhood, seeing as many children in abusive homes become productive law abiding adults, and children from stable well provided for homes become deviants of the cruelest kind. What I think Jones touched on, but did not explore was the type of society these girls were exposed to, being a sleepy quiet town with nothing to do but to create their own entertainment. Boredom breeds trouble as it is now so easily seen with online bullying. If a person doesn't have anything better to do, what becomes fun might just be down right cruel. It takes too much time on a person's hands to write a cruel blog, troll forums, attack others, and taking it offline, no more can that be demonstrated than in this book, where hours upon hours were spent plotting, torturing, and killing a young defenseless girl.