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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
medium-paced
Great way to create the story. Seeing every aspect through many points of view.
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
Quite compelling. And haunting at times, knowing its a true crime. Takes you into everyone's perspective very well.
Some upsetting racial slurs and racism.
Some upsetting racial slurs and racism.
This book was insanely creepy, and the beginning and the end were difficult for me to get through because of how gruesome they were. It makes me queasy to think about people who can just kill at the drop of a hat because they look and seem totally normal on the outside. After finishing this book I had to double check the locks a couple times because I couldn't stop thinking about the dude who was thought of as a super nice guy who just murdered his whole family because he wanted his inheritance. The book itself was super detailed and spot on with its facts. But, however interesting some parts of this book might have been, I hope to never think of it again.
finally finished it. this was a hard read, not hard in the context of reading or the language, but the story itself. i feel like i’ve been reading this book forever. honestly, i had to pause a few times because of how horrible and cruel the story is, and even worse, it is a true story
truman capote writes as journalist in this book, telling about the lives of ordinary people suddenly shattered by an unthinkable act. he pieces together the voices and moments surrounding the event, so vivid that it feels like i was there watching it unfold
murder, with or without motive is wrong but i felt such a mix of feelings in those last lines. i kind of feel bad for perry and his last words. still, at least he admitted it and apologized, unlike dick who until the end kept insisting he was not a killer
what makes this book so haunting for me is not just the crime itself, but the feeling it left afterward. it made me wrestle with questions about being human, and how regret and vulnerability can exist side by side. it feels so wrong to rate this book, so i won’t rate it
I need to start this by saying I had never read Capote before, and I was completely ignorant of the fact that this was based on true events. I say "based" because, as several other people point out, there's no way Capote could have known all of the details he shared, and I think even a writer following a story as strictly as they can will embellish for a better read. So, I don't really understand people being upset about it not being 100% fact.
The book is immensely descriptive, which is beautiful but also overwhelming at some points. I definitely got lost in Capote's parenthetical, paragraph sized sentences here and there. You get to know the Clutters, the townsfolk, the agents working the case, and you certainly get to know Smith and Hickock.
I do see how this could be seen as the pre-murder obsessive podcast of its era, but I think unlike all of the countless podcasts and shows, Capote leaves a bit more for the reader to grapple with. You are left having conflicted feelings about events and people in the book.
Once the killers are caught, some of the sweet and wholesome townsfolk are vengeful and want death or torturous conditions for the murderers, while others turn to forgiveness taught in religion. Capote includes so much detail of Hickock and Smith that there are times their lives inspire sympathy, but he's careful to include all of the ugly details that remind you that they are cold blooded killers.
What, in my mind, fully separates this from the common podcast is the look at our criminal justice system. The book kind of switches gears in the last section(s?) as you are left to think about fairness in trials and what it means for the criminal justice system to take lives as a form of punishment/justice.
I appreciate how full of a picture the book paints, but part of me thinks Capote could have just written about the death penalty focusing on several trials and lives of individuals on death row in different states. There is also the uncomfortable truth that as captivated as the world is about the Clutter murders, there is surviving family that had the story thrust in their face and watched people capitalize on their horror for too long (which, as interesting as I found the story, definitely made me feel guilty). Sticking to an in-depth look at criminal justice might have spared them some grief.
The book is immensely descriptive, which is beautiful but also overwhelming at some points. I definitely got lost in Capote's parenthetical, paragraph sized sentences here and there. You get to know the Clutters, the townsfolk, the agents working the case, and you certainly get to know Smith and Hickock.
I do see how this could be seen as the pre-murder obsessive podcast of its era, but I think unlike all of the countless podcasts and shows, Capote leaves a bit more for the reader to grapple with. You are left having conflicted feelings about events and people in the book.
Once the killers are caught, some of the sweet and wholesome townsfolk are vengeful and want death or torturous conditions for the murderers, while others turn to forgiveness taught in religion. Capote includes so much detail of Hickock and Smith that there are times their lives inspire sympathy, but he's careful to include all of the ugly details that remind you that they are cold blooded killers.
What, in my mind, fully separates this from the common podcast is the look at our criminal justice system. The book kind of switches gears in the last section(s?) as you are left to think about fairness in trials and what it means for the criminal justice system to take lives as a form of punishment/justice.
I appreciate how full of a picture the book paints, but part of me thinks Capote could have just written about the death penalty focusing on several trials and lives of individuals on death row in different states. There is also the uncomfortable truth that as captivated as the world is about the Clutter murders, there is surviving family that had the story thrust in their face and watched people capitalize on their horror for too long (which, as interesting as I found the story, definitely made me feel guilty). Sticking to an in-depth look at criminal justice might have spared them some grief.
This book was hard to follow on audiobook. With the good reviews, it may be better to read via print.