Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

3 reviews

bcooper21's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Blood, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Death, Sexual assault, Violence, and Alcohol

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Gore, Racism, Self harm, Grief, Mental illness, Cancer, Rape, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Sexual content, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Terminal illness, Eating disorder, Vomit, and Car accident

moraina's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

This was a very slow read for me. I appreciate that Truman Capote presented everything as factual and didn’t sensationalize, since these were real people that were affected by an awful crime. However, his lengthy descriptions and tedious run-on sentences sometimes made it difficult to stay engaged. I think he did do a fair job representing the events that happened and provided both commentary from a more outside perspective as well as representing how the community felt during these events, but the writing style did lessen my enjoyment of the book.

The descriptions of Dick and Perry’s capture and subsequent trial really did make me think on what is considered substantial evidence and a fair trial. I think Capote also did a good job delving into the ethics of capital punishment. It is interesting to see how much more religion played a role in these matters, given both the time period and geographic location of the events. Exploring the childhood of Perry, in particular, does end up being rather important for understanding the murders. I found the discussion of childhood abuse and the reasons for “murders with no apparent motive” quite interesting as well (although terrible, of course).

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide, Torture, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Racial slurs, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Blood, and Gun violence

Moderate: Rape, Adult/minor relationship, and Pedophilia

Minor: Animal death and Terminal illness

librarymouse's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.25

This text was jarring in that there was vibrant and comprehensive descriptions of seemingly innocuous details and then facts like Hickock's pedophilic tendencies were dropped into the middle of a paragraph, only to be left and then picked up again after dozens of pages. The descriptions of the Clutters, their family life, their friends, and their pastoral joys made the details of their deaths all the more profoundly upsetting. I appreciated the depth of research that went into this book and the information given on the communities the Clutters and their killers spent time in, but I am also, in some ways, upset with the lengths at which this book works to humanize the killers. It's bitter to feel something akin to empathy with either of them or the men that lived with them on death row.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Gore, Cancer, Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Car accident, Sexual content, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Blood, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Death, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Grief, Misogyny, Murder, Violence, Gun violence, Body shaming, Pedophilia, Child death, and Confinement