Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

226 reviews

amberboo61997's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.25

Killers of the Flower Moon is an intense, yet fascinating true-crime historical narrative where David Grann tells the story of the Osage Murders from a straight-forward and almost impartial point of view. The short length of the book may surprise people given the subject matter, but a lot of this tale is tainted with false reports, hearsay, and limited information thus stunting Grann's (and even the FBI's) ability to tell the entire "truth". It also doesn't help that while writing the book Grann uncovered numerous other murders and conspiracies that added onto the insanity of a story that was already riddled with disbelief and purposefully hidden from public knowledge. 
I believe the book is a good read even if a common critique is its lack of descriptive details into certain parts or aspects of the subject matter. It's a good introduction if you want to look into American stories hidden or deleted from history by the "winners" and shows how a government organization such as the FBI began and operated on its own self-serving needs.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Torture, Murder, Genocide, Racism, Hate crime, Racial slurs, and Death

Moderate: Medical trauma, Medical content, and Physical abuse

Minor: Alcoholism and Domestic abuse

meant2breading's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.”                                          
                                                                        The research done by David Grann for this book was of high caliber and was shared to us in a way that felt almost concurrent despite these horrific atrocities taking place a century ago. This book sheds light on the Reign of Terror (the rampant racism, corruption, greed, and the murders of the Osage people by primarily white people). It focuses mainly on the Burkhart family, the investigations involved, and touches on the FBI creation. It seemed Grann intended to respect and honor the Osage community in this book, who we learn will never have restorative justice. We also see a glimpse of the impacts of their generational trauma once all the motivations are clear. Hundreds of families have no closure either and it makes my heart and stomach ache. What a prominent reminder to know our history, especially its abundance of brutality.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Racism, and Violence

prettiestwhistles's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Racism, Emotional abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Hate crime, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Blood, Grief, Medical content, Death of parent, Violence, Confinement, and Child death

Minor: Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Car accident

aliasinferno's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad fast-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Murder, Racism, and Violence

mabechel's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

3.25

It's an important part of history that I enjoyed learning. I mostly docked stars because the pacing was unnecessarily nonlinear in some parts, which made it more difficult to follow. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Hate crime, and Murder

Minor: Alcohol

sixtimes's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Incredibly informative and powerful. The author was able to make his technical writing concise in a way that made it easier for me to understand than many nonfiction books I have tried to read. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Racism, and Murder

river23's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Racism, Colonisation, Xenophobia, Murder, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Alcohol and Gun violence

Minor: Infidelity

kcup_espresso's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.5

I definitely wanted to like this book more than I did. I think this story is an important one, showing just a piece of the history in which white Americans brutalized and murdered what is suspected to be hundreds of Osage people. The beginning really had me hooked, being from Mollie’s POV. But once the POV shifted away from Mollie I had a harder time focusing. I didn’t think the parts that discussed the history of the FBI were as cohesive as I would have liked, I’m not sure. I did enjoy the last third of the book of the author talking to us directly about his research. My opinion of the narrative style of each section could possibly be swayed by the different audiobook narrators as well; I loved the first narrator but didn’t love the main narrator for part two. Overall I’m still glad I read the book and learned a lot. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Murder, and Grief

lindsdavis's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Violence, and Murder

burnourhistory's review against another edition

informative sad medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Medical content, Colonisation, Death of parent, Violence, Genocide, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, and Gun violence