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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
dark
fast-paced
This leaned a little more extreme than I was planning to read but we made it through (the animal abuse really got to me)
Kolesnik’s writing is exceptional and captivating, and it’s an odd phenomenon to admire the beauty in such a disturbing story. It was heartbreaking to be in Suzy’s head, contemplating if she has any goodness left in her after enduring so much harm and corrosion of her spirit. As the reader you often question if any of Suzy and Lim’s misdeeds can be justified or understood given everything they experienced. Can they be healed and rehabilitated? Are they too far gone?
Beautiful and brutal. Brutiful?
Beautiful and brutal. Brutiful?
WOW
what I expected was a shameless “fuck the world” blood fest with a twisted ending
what I got? Literally made me put my book down and reevaluate myself and the situations I’ve been in and how I, as a survivor, compare to the protagonist. Obviously I’m not going on murdering people but there were some moments where I was like “yeah…I get how you feel”. It really got to me. This book in general really got to me and honestly, this may be the best attempt at making a morally reprehensible person someone you wanna root for imo. I really wanted Suzy to turn a new leaf despite everything. I almost threw my IPad during the last bit because yeah, I knew she could never just magically become a saint but goddamnit…
Anyway, this book is definitely disturbing but not just because it’s a gore fest (honestly, there rly is little gore though there is murder and other traditional fucked up stuff like (C)SA and animal abuse) but because of the exploration of the mc’s mind. Urgh, this might be one of my fav books ever but I’m never reading it again.
what I expected was a shameless “fuck the world” blood fest with a twisted ending
what I got? Literally made me put my book down and reevaluate myself and the situations I’ve been in and how I, as a survivor, compare to the protagonist. Obviously I’m not going on murdering people but there were some moments where I was like “yeah…I get how you feel”. It really got to me. This book in general really got to me and honestly, this may be the best attempt at making a morally reprehensible person someone you wanna root for imo. I really wanted Suzy to turn a new leaf despite everything. I almost threw my IPad during the last bit because yeah, I knew she could never just magically become a saint but goddamnit…
Anyway, this book is definitely disturbing but not just because it’s a gore fest (honestly, there rly is little gore though there is murder and other traditional fucked up stuff like (C)SA and animal abuse) but because of the exploration of the mc’s mind. Urgh, this might be one of my fav books ever but I’m never reading it again.
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence
My review of TRUE CRIME can be found at High Fever Books.
In the build-up to it’s release, I’ve seen a number of comparisons being made between Samantha Kolesnik’s debut and Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door. It’s a fair comparison, and although True Crime doesn’t cut as bone-deep as Ketchum’s justifiably highly regarded emotional and psychological assault against its readers, Kolesnik certainly knows how to worm around a reader’s brain and make their soul ache.
Right from its opening pages, the author lets you know what kind of book True Crime is and the space her lead character, Suzy, inhabits in the world. Suzy is a victim seeking escape from the predations of her mother, until she finally snaps and settles the score. She and her older, far more imposing, brother then hit the road, leaving in their wake a trail of bodies and carnage.
Kolesnik pulls no punches in her portrayals of some truly awful, broken people and the degradation they impose upon humanity. Having directed several short films previously, the author uses her words here like a camera, setting up scenes and placing the lens close to study every intimate detail, whether you want to see them or not.
Suzy is a wonderfully realized, three-dimensional girl trapped and attempting to surface in this twisted coming of age story. She is seeking to find her place in the world, rebelling against her victim-hood even as she acknowledges that she’s always somebody’s subservient dog. She’s meek in the face of Mama’s anger, and, later, follows behind an ex-convict who routinely masturbates in front of her, simply because it’s what she has been trained to do. Violence is oftentimes her only recourse, the only method she has to finding some degree of control over her own life, and it calls to mind questions of nature versus nurture. Is she a compulsive reader of the gaudy True Crime magazine and its lurid depictions of crime scenes and corpses because she herself is a victim, or because she hopes to be one day sensationalized in similar fashion as either a killer or victim, or both? Did Mama’s abuse and sexual assaults and Suzy’s years of objectification make her cold blooded, or would she have grown up to be a damaged survivor in any circumstance?
In some ways, Suzy is the antithesis to The Girl Next Door’s Meg, a What If? story about the abused girl who makes her way out into the world but only knows pain and suffering, and how to inflict it. A girl who knows and understands violence better than she understands her own self, and hopes that one can help her learn about and define the other.
True Crime is a shocking and potent debut, and Kolesnik is one hell of a powerful writer. If you’re looking for The Next Big Name in psychological horror, start here.
In the build-up to it’s release, I’ve seen a number of comparisons being made between Samantha Kolesnik’s debut and Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door. It’s a fair comparison, and although True Crime doesn’t cut as bone-deep as Ketchum’s justifiably highly regarded emotional and psychological assault against its readers, Kolesnik certainly knows how to worm around a reader’s brain and make their soul ache.
Right from its opening pages, the author lets you know what kind of book True Crime is and the space her lead character, Suzy, inhabits in the world. Suzy is a victim seeking escape from the predations of her mother, until she finally snaps and settles the score. She and her older, far more imposing, brother then hit the road, leaving in their wake a trail of bodies and carnage.
Kolesnik pulls no punches in her portrayals of some truly awful, broken people and the degradation they impose upon humanity. Having directed several short films previously, the author uses her words here like a camera, setting up scenes and placing the lens close to study every intimate detail, whether you want to see them or not.
Suzy is a wonderfully realized, three-dimensional girl trapped and attempting to surface in this twisted coming of age story. She is seeking to find her place in the world, rebelling against her victim-hood even as she acknowledges that she’s always somebody’s subservient dog. She’s meek in the face of Mama’s anger, and, later, follows behind an ex-convict who routinely masturbates in front of her, simply because it’s what she has been trained to do. Violence is oftentimes her only recourse, the only method she has to finding some degree of control over her own life, and it calls to mind questions of nature versus nurture. Is she a compulsive reader of the gaudy True Crime magazine and its lurid depictions of crime scenes and corpses because she herself is a victim, or because she hopes to be one day sensationalized in similar fashion as either a killer or victim, or both? Did Mama’s abuse and sexual assaults and Suzy’s years of objectification make her cold blooded, or would she have grown up to be a damaged survivor in any circumstance?
In some ways, Suzy is the antithesis to The Girl Next Door’s Meg, a What If? story about the abused girl who makes her way out into the world but only knows pain and suffering, and how to inflict it. A girl who knows and understands violence better than she understands her own self, and hopes that one can help her learn about and define the other.
True Crime is a shocking and potent debut, and Kolesnik is one hell of a powerful writer. If you’re looking for The Next Big Name in psychological horror, start here.
There was some beautiful prose here. Every other page had a one liner that made me feel everything and nothing all at once. But, the story was so rushed that it felt disconnected.
I still don't understand why she let Alice die. I don't think I was able to get over that.
Spoiler
I still don't understand why she let Alice die. I don't think I was able to get over that.
Well written, depressing, and depraved. Not for the faint of heart!
True Crime by Samantha Kolesnik is a difficult book to read, for sure, but what's so remarkable about it and why I continued reading is how the author navigates this brutal material. There's a point in the book where I think many readers will have to decide for themselves if they want to continue reading, and it was at that point I prepared myself grudgingly for where I thought the book was going. The book defied my expectations and went somewhere else. Once my expectations were reset, I thought I knew exactly how the novel was going to end, only to have Kolesnik complicate and deepen the larger story in an insightful and moving way.
The book is full of insights, including one that really got to me: "you can be the best damn parent in the world Monday through Saturday but if you hit your kid on Sunday, that's all the kid will remember. Your hand and the hurt, the anger in your eyes."
Kolesnik's exploration of trauma is not comfortable material, but it's not gratuitous, either. There are no easy answers here about how to deescalate and interrupt cycles of abuse, let alone recovery from trauma, but there is value in examining these topics so closely and with such insight. Highly recommended, if you can handle the content.
The book is full of insights, including one that really got to me: "you can be the best damn parent in the world Monday through Saturday but if you hit your kid on Sunday, that's all the kid will remember. Your hand and the hurt, the anger in your eyes."
Kolesnik's exploration of trauma is not comfortable material, but it's not gratuitous, either. There are no easy answers here about how to deescalate and interrupt cycles of abuse, let alone recovery from trauma, but there is value in examining these topics so closely and with such insight. Highly recommended, if you can handle the content.