Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer by Jennifer Jordan, Liza Rodman

14 reviews

kylamunoz's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Death, Murder, and Drug use

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Homophobia

myantigone's review against another edition

dark sad fast-paced

1.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gore, Murder, Sexual assault, Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Death, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Physical abuse, Rape, Gun violence, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Infidelity, Pregnancy, and Cannibalism

librarymouse's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

4.5

The Babysitter shows life in Provincetown MA in the 1906s through a mix of personal memoir and synthesizing a timeline of Tony Costa's life and crimes. There was an astounding amount of casual drug use, alcoholism, and a combination of the two, and the manic energy that cocktail of drugs creates was captured really well by Rodman's descriptions of the adults in her life. It was fully not the intention of the book, but having friends from MA and fond memories of visiting them, the vivid description of Portuguese foods and familiar locations made me smile. The happy memories Liza Rodman shares are intimate and nostalgic. This book is written with stunning detail, showing both the best and the worst the era and location had to offer. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Child abuse, Rape, Murder, Suicide, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Cannibalism, Car accident, and Homophobia

Minor: Incest

foreverinastory's review against another edition

challenging informative slow-paced

3.0

This was interesting.

CWs: child abuse/neglect, murder, drug use/abuse, addiction, rape, sexual violence, emotional abuse, sexual assault, parental abandonment, domestic abuse, gore, dismemberment, violence, alcoholism, death, physical abuse, suicide, mental illness, adult/minor relationship, toxic relationship, blood, homophobia, f-slur, misogyny, sexual content. Moderate: animal cruelty, kidnapping, pedophilia, suicidal thoughts, torture, suicide attempt, injury/injury detail, fatphobia, body shaming, self harm, abortion, vomit, excrement.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Violence, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Death, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, and Sexual content

Moderate: Self harm, Abortion, Excrement, Animal cruelty, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Body shaming, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, and Fatphobia

nellkristen's review against another edition

dark informative sad slow-paced

2.5

It started pretty interesting but I got pretty bored pretty fast. Once I lost interest, I couldn’t get it back. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Blood, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Minor: Abortion, Death of parent, and Excrement

mangofandango's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

2.5

This is mostly a very sad story about the neglect and abuse of the author, which resulted in her being desperate for attention and being left in the random "care" of various adults...and one of those random adults was Tony Costa, a serial killer. It is interspersed with chapters about Tony's life and eventually, his crimes and his arrest. It's an interesting merging of two very different approaches to telling this story, and it works in some respects, but I thought it was a bit clunky and there were sections of it that were kind of a slog. I feel for the author of course, she suffered greatly and overcame a lot, and I don't mean to detract from that. I feel tenderness towards her and wanted to keep her safe. But the structure of this book and the writing did not work well for me. I found myself reading it faster just to be able to move on to the next book in my pile!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual assault, Gore, Drug use, and Child abuse

melanie_page's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad medium-paced

4.0

The most bizarre character in The Babysitter is not Tony, but his child bride, Avis. At fourteen, Avis starts dating Tony, who in his twenties often tried to garner the attention of early-teen girls. Together they get pregnant on purpose to force her mother to sign off on their marriage. By fifteen she’s a wife and mother. Later, with three children, she and Tony divorce, but she continues to help Tony, giving him rides and lying to police for him, despite the sexual abuse she faced while married to him. At his trial for multiple murders, Avis blows kisses to Tony when she enters the courtroom with her boyfriend. She often refuses to shower, clean her home (police note there is dog shit on the floor and refuse to sit on the furniture), or properly care for their children.

Check out the full review here: https://grabthelapels.com/2021/05/25/the-babysitter-by-lisa-rodman-and-jennifer-jordan/

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence, Murder, Violence, and Emotional abuse

It's a true crime book in which the killer dismembers women and coerces his child bride (age 14) into sexual situations in which she does not want to participate. You don't get everything in great detail (I'm comparing to a book like Missoula), but there are descriptions.

booksandlemonade's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious sad medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Violence

taiy's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

4.0

Interesting format and perspective to tell this story. Definitely a dark one all around. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Violence

renee_reads_books's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

3.75

The Babysitter was part memoir, part true crime story about Liza Rodman's summers in Provincetown as a child. She and her sister, Louisa, were often watched after by other adults working at the local motels or other service industry jobs for the summer, and one of those adults was Tony Costa. Liza adored Tony and loved going on rides to the dump with him because he would frequently stop to buy them popsicles or ice cream, and sometimes he would take them out to his secret garden in the woods so that he could check on things. 

Years later, as an adult, Liza learns that Tony was a serial killer, and that the secret garden where he stopped to "check on things" was actually where he was stashing drugs and burying bodies. 

It was an engaging read and well-researched. One thing that I struggled with was that it felt like perhaps her fondness for Tony was played up a bit for the purposes of the novel. I could be wrong, but in the grand scheme of things, she wasn't with him that much. So while I believe that she enjoyed going for rides in the summer, I'm not sure if she really thought about the summer babysitters much during the school year, although I suppose it's possible. 

The end seemed to drag a bit. It wasn't terrible, but once things sort of wrapped up and the story kept going, it became a little more difficult to stay engaged because I wasn't sure where it was going so close to the end. That's minor and might just be a "me" thing. 

TW that there are a lot of graphic details about what Tony Costa did to the bodies and it might be disturbing for some readers. 

All in all, I would recommend this, especially if you are a fan of true crime. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Murder, Rape, and Violence

Minor: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug use, and Emotional abuse