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tjlcody's review against another edition
1.0
So, yeah, the author's upfront about the fact that this is a mix of memoir and true crime.
The problem is that it's more "aimless memoir" than it is true crime. Even what little remains of the true crime aspect of the book is horrendously boring and disconnected.
The opening of the book leads you to believe that the two will tie-in significantly- they don't. I made it about halfway through the book before I gave up. Things just jump all over the place throughout the book, from one meaningless topic to another. There's no direction to this book and without something to compensate for an anticipated payoff- something interesting to read in the meantime, even if it's confusing- it's just painful to keep sloughing through it.
The problem is that it's more "aimless memoir" than it is true crime. Even what little remains of the true crime aspect of the book is horrendously boring and disconnected.
The opening of the book leads you to believe that the two will tie-in significantly- they don't. I made it about halfway through the book before I gave up. Things just jump all over the place throughout the book, from one meaningless topic to another. There's no direction to this book and without something to compensate for an anticipated payoff- something interesting to read in the meantime, even if it's confusing- it's just painful to keep sloughing through it.
elisanolasco's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
heykellyjensen's review against another edition
An absorbing memoir/true crime read about Piper Weiss's life intersecting with Gary Wilensky. Wilensky earned her trust, as well as her family's, but it was through this grooming behavior that allowed him to then pursue further attempts at relationships with his young clients. His attempts to capture and seduce one of his students went terribly wrong, which led Wilensky to end his life, and Weiss's book is an attempt to not only explore who he was and what drew him to behave this way, but it's also a look at how being a teenage girl is a land mine of men like Wilensky. Weiss is privileged and well-off in Manhattan, with access to so much, yet a man like him was able to gain her trust, her parents trust, and the trust of so many others like her.
This is an exploration of why not her, and yet, why her at the same time. It's a book about the way adults groom and earn the trust of young victims, about the ways that those advances can be brushed aside and ignored.
It's hard to say much more. Weiss is, by all accounts, as average as someone with her status could be, and her experiences with Wilensky are as a victim without being "the" victim. In a lot of ways, this makes her story relatable and something so many women will identify with.
The audiobook for this was great. Brittany Pressley gives a great performance and offers up just enough intonation to give more depth to the book itself -- her voice sounds like a teen girl, on the cusp of adulthood, and here, it works perfectly.
This is an exploration of why not her, and yet, why her at the same time. It's a book about the way adults groom and earn the trust of young victims, about the ways that those advances can be brushed aside and ignored.
It's hard to say much more. Weiss is, by all accounts, as average as someone with her status could be, and her experiences with Wilensky are as a victim without being "the" victim. In a lot of ways, this makes her story relatable and something so many women will identify with.
The audiobook for this was great. Brittany Pressley gives a great performance and offers up just enough intonation to give more depth to the book itself -- her voice sounds like a teen girl, on the cusp of adulthood, and here, it works perfectly.
knmed's review
2.75
I liked the somewhat experimental format of this book. I love coming of age stories and true crime so I thought I would love this book. I think a lot of people won’t like that Weiss is just someone that knew Wilensky but wasn’t the girl who he attempted to kidnap, but I think it’s interesting to get a first hand account of him as a person from someone who wasn’t the main victim and to hear a little bit about her need to have been the favorite mixed with survivor’s guilt. However, the timeline and writing of this was chaotic at best. The crime was talked about in a pretty vague manor and only had moments of all the other predatory things that Wilensky did. So the true crime half seemed lacking. In the memoir/coming of age half I really liked the nostalgia of what it was like growing up as a girl in the 90s. But this part of the timeline also seemed a little disconnected, but made a lot more chronological sense than how the crime was told. Then there was journalistic informational chapter thrown in attempting to seem disconnected from the whole thing. In the end, Weiss attempted to be a journalist, a true crime teller, and to write a memoir of her childhood and all 3 fell short. I think this format could really work but it needed more clarity and she maybe needed to choose journalism or memoir. Both of those didn’t work together well for Weiss as a writer. I never felt like picking this up, but whenever I did I was drawn in and always wanted to keep going.
ipoppycat's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
3.75
juliemhowe's review against another edition
5.0
The coming-of-age stuff is just as tough to read as the actual crime. Engagingly written, and will stay with me for some time.
lucyob's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
3.25
not a bad book, and one that was really easy to read, but i doubt i'll think about it much after today
isacataldo's review against another edition
I really did not like the authors POV to be honest, I felt like it was odd for her to write this book based on her relationship to the man/story.