Reviews - True Crime | The StoryGraph

420 reviews for:

True Crime

Samantha Kolesnik

3.53 AVERAGE

natreviews's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense 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

Okay, I really liked this book. To be honest, part of you can understand why/how Suzy is Suzy. It's a hard read at parts, but nothing too crazy if you are a fan of the true crime genre (you'd have heard it all). It was really well written (apart from the odd spelling/grammar error) and was a good first outing for Kolesnik. I'm excited to keep track of her career and see what she writes next.

acbrummitt's review against another edition

2.0

dark fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

ciarasweeney's review against another edition

3.0

fast-paced

Content Warnings

erica1994's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark emotional sad tense 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

sarahblessing's review against another edition

5.0

dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

so I finally got kindle unlimited for the next two months only in order to binge read all the free horror novellas and books I’ve had on my tbr for forever in anticipation of Halloween and I started with this because it was short and I’ve been dying to get my hands on it for a year

and uh wow like holy shit

I constantly make fun of those tiktok lists people make of like “this is the most extreme, depraved, disgusting shit I’ve ever read, I didn’t sleep for days and it made me too sick to eat!” and then it’s like a bunch of Nick Cutter, one Poppy Z Brite book, and that fucking god awful Gone to See the River Man book lmao

because the thing is, I do have a soft spot for extreme and shock horror! I grew up on Poppy Z Brite and VC Andrews, I don’t mind reading something depraved, in fact sometimes I want to read something depraved! but I ask that the author who writes depraved shit actually CARES about the story they’re writing and puts effort into it to make ME care about that story.

I don’t wanna read some dumb shock value shit that was clearly just written with the intention of shocking the audience and/or pandering to creeps who get off on reading torture p0rn.

all that to say that this is definitely extreme horror imo, and it is not just written to make you squeamish. it definitely will make you squeamish, but it’s also fantastically written and much more deep than I’d expect from something like this. it has so much to say about being a girl, being a victim, being a predator, and being a mix of all three. I started out kinda detached but as it kept on I couldn’t put it down and finished the whole thing in like two hours and by the end I was in love with this novella.

anyways if you like horror that stays with you and haunts you and keeps making you think for what I imagine will be years to come, pick this one up. it’s only 150 pages or so and it’s fucking electric. I will absolutely be following Kolesnik to the ends of the earth now.

(also it goes without saying but basically every single trigger warning that could ever be applied to something applies to this so keep that in mind if you’re sensitive to reading dark things, I suggest looking up the specific TW’s if you need them.)