Reviews with content warning for Child death - The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir

"The past already has its hold on me. There’s nothing to do but face it." What a difficult and necessary book to read. This nonfiction book follows two paths. One written by the author, Alex, who was molested as a child by her grandfather and then grows up to work for a law firm that defends a child molester and murderer, Ricky Langley. The other part of this book follows Ricky Langley and the terrible day in which he took the life of a six year old boy, Jeremy in Louisiana. And Langley's struggle with controlling his urges, trying to seek help in prison, in mental health clinics and doctors, and ultimately going back to his old ways.

Child abuse will and is hard to read about but I found this book so cathartic to read from the author's perspective. I knew what the after effects of child abuse could have on an adult but I had no idea to what extent. This trauma as a child can effect not only future relationships but your education, your world views, and careers. For so long I was so angry at the parents who knew of this abuse by the grandfather and as lawyers, did nothing about it. It was buried deep into their minds so much so that only the author was the one to act on the memories. Reading about Langley and his childhood and terrible acts were difficult also to read. But it was so scary to see how this murder could have been prevented at so many points! Langley with the right resources and support might have turned his life around and the death of Jeremy could have been prevented.

This book also helped me to see how molestation can affect not just families, but communities, laws, memories, neighborhoods, and mental and physical health. So go into this book knowing it is hard to read but do not turn away from it because it is important to understand the lengths trauma can reach.

Please seek out other trigger warnings in this book. I am not an expert on them and know I would miss a few of them. Storygraph offers great trigger warnings provided by readers for individual books.

Content Warnings

honniker's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

Despite this being billed as true crime, it's not really. It's the story of a murderer and the story of a woman and how their stories have common themes. It's kind of a story of humanity and its brokenness.

This book was really well written. The author did a good job building up a sense of dread and she also did a good job making you wonder about things. For that I give it five stars.

I will say, however, that there is a lot of speculation when it comes to some of the things about Ricky Langley which can be a little weird at times. Other than that though I highly recommend this book.

Content Warnings

samchase112's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

Damn. The Fact of a Body is an extremely powerful book about deeply disturbing and difficult topics. Marzano-Lesnevich's writing is so compelling and they weave the story together so incredibly well; each scene, each word, was so carefully chosen. I won't lie, this is not an easy book to read -- there is something horrible happening on seemingly every page. All I can say is that I loved and hated every second in almost equal measure.

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