Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe

6 reviews

aileron's review against another edition

dark informative reflective fast-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mass/school shootings, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Racism

avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging informative reflective fast-paced

4.25

Narrator Rating: 4.5 stars

    A look into women's relationship with true crime from four perspectives. The author looks into four points of contact with true crime and obsession.
    This book had a lot of social commentary which I enjoyed and made me think about my relationship with true crime. Luckily for me, I don't seem to be obsessed. I listen to many podcasts but avoid rabbit holes and obsessive searches into cases. 
    Overall, it is a great reflection on women's relationship to true crime and how it affects women and society overall. 

   Extra ratings: Fluff - NA   Heartfelt- 4/5   Helpful-2/5   Horror -NA    Inspiration -0/5   Love aka Romance- NA    Mystery - NA   Predictability - NA    Spice - NA    Suspense - NA   Tear- 3.5/5   Thrill - NA     Humor-0/5 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Misogyny, Murder, Toxic relationship, Death, Blood, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Mental illness, Sexism, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Mass/school shootings, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Gun violence, and Bullying

stephen_reads's review against another edition

2.75

This fast-paced scattered narrative follows 4 distinct and unrelated women who were involved in true crime in some way.

Although the author tries to link the 4 narratives with an overarching moralistic message about women and their relationship to violent media, the book feels disjointed and haphazard.

The author also fails completely in her task to be objective. She even has a friendly relationship with one of the women, describing her in the acknowledgements as warm and generous, leading to her profile being uncritical and positive. This is the woman who married Damian Echols, one of the West Memphis 3, while he was awaiting execution on death row. Everything this woman says is taken at face value, her flaws and strange behaviour completely glossed over, any sense of ambiguity destroyed. It comes across as flat, disingenuous, and deceptive. The narrative doesn’t want to ask questions or be curious, it lacks objectivity, it’s frustrating. 

The conclusions drawn about the four women are vague. An attempt is made to discuss the whiteness of true crime fanaticism and the inherent racism of the community, but it never goes deep enough and intersectional victims are relegated firmly in the background.

A positive I can say about this book is that it’s fast-paced, the author has wit and writes fairly charmingly, if condescendingly at times. I easily finished it in an afternoon and didn’t consider it entirely wasted time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Child death, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Racism, Antisemitism, and Self harm

kdbookdragon's review against another edition

challenging dark informative medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Murder, Mass/school shootings, and Gun violence

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, and Racism

mfrisk's review against another edition

dark informative reflective slow-paced

2.75

I thought the premise of this book was interesting as someone who consumes true crime content and is working to learn to also be more critical of what I consume especially in this vein over time. That being said, the stories chosen I think were interesting to learn more about though I felt in their own chapters the lessons were a bit too neatly wrapped up and decided and the ending felt similarly too wrapped up and decided despite noting that there are shades of grey in these situations. I didn’t really enjoy much of the author’s commentary as I felt she often missed the mark and saw herself as above others who consume true crime content while also being incredibly overly empathetic towards Columbiners of all those highlighted in this book. While there were some interesting points made I felt this book missed the mark in the pacing and balance of the commentary and story aspects of this book and because of this the points made felt at times contradictory and at others not fully thought out. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Kidnapping, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Murder, Toxic relationship, Mass/school shootings, Gore, Sexual assault, and Blood

Minor: Antisemitism, Racism, and Bullying

carleeofcourse's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicide attempt, Hate crime, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Suicide, Kidnapping, Death, Self harm, Violence, and Grief