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Reviews tagging 'Self harm'
Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe
2 reviews
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Child death, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Murder
Moderate: Racism, Antisemitism, and Self harm
carleeofcourse's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
4.0
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
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