Reviews tagging 'Rape'

I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

245 reviews

kendall09's review against another edition

emotional informative mysterious medium-paced

5.0

This book was one of the best books I've read this year! The way McNamara writes is beautiful, yet haunting. This book is about her journey searching for the GSK and how it ensnared her in it's trap. Though she is discussing horrific topics and crimes, she doesn't dwell on the gruesome details of each crime, instead points out the specific clues and pieces of evidence that link back to the GSK (or East Area R*pist). She writes eloquently, does not get into too technical jargon, and leaves you hanging on to her every word. Knowing that she passed before the completion of her book, and before they caught the vile person who was coined the Golden State Killer by McNamara, makes this read so much more haunting. I am stuck with the words she ended her book on,"Letter to the Golden State Killer" (https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/letter-to-the-golden-state-killer) before she passed and before the arrest of GSK. 

It closes with: 

"This is how it ends for you.

“You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark,” you threatened a victim once.

Open the door. Show us your face.

Walk into the light." 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Sexual violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, and Torture

kittyj21's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Rape, and Death

kyliesh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Likely the scariest book I’ve ever read. McNamara has a way of writing non fiction really well and walking the line of being empathetic toward victims but not holding back on details that are important to the case really well. Extremely sad that she was unable to see the GSK identified and imprisoned but her letter in the epilogue was truly amazing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Stalking

winifred_k22's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Murder, Blood, Sexual assault, Stalking, Violence, Sexual violence, Rape, and Death of parent

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Rape, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Blood, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Grief, and Murder

valmai's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

5.0

We’ve lost a great author in McNamara. Her obsessive chronicling of the hard to find details of the Golden State Killer translate into a thoughtful and terrifying blend of memoir, true crime reporting, and rigorous research. I read this in two days. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Rape, and Sexual violence

haileyeh's review against another edition

dark emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Torture, Violence, Sexual violence, Rape, Death, Stalking, Murder, and Physical abuse

theunfinishedbookshelf's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Murder, Stalking, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

knkoch's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious medium-paced

3.0

An ambitious project that is unfortunately incomplete. Michelle McNamara was a really gifted writer, and her prose in the beginning of the book is really lucid and deft, powerful even. I didn't mind the sections where she wrote about herself, the way some readers seemed to. This was obviously an extremely personal project that consumed her over several years, and it made sense to me that she included her personal experience with a crime in her neighborhood in Chicago. However, the other side of the coin in that regard is that creeping icky feeling that McNamara's true crime passion is more an obsession, a little lurid, a little too fascinated. 

But she doesn't lean too far in that direction, thankfully. I appreciate her ultimate aim, bringing justice and awareness to these cold case crimes against women. I watched the documentary about this book a few months ago, and this certainly raised my awareness of the sheer ubiquity of these types of crimes in the 1970s and 80s. The documentary was structured more clearly, and certainly benefitted from the successful discovery of the offender, which occurred right after the book was published. The book, with the unfinished chapters that friends and writers tried to finish and fill in as McNamara may have intended, can never be complete in the way she wanted, as neither a solution or summation in her voice is possible anymore. It's unforgettable in that way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Murder

wintery1's review against another edition

dark informative tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Torture, Death, Violence, Murder, Sexual violence, Rape, and Drug abuse