Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson

77 reviews

j_the_human's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Kidnapping, Child abuse, and Child death

a_meanderer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Grief, Trafficking, Violence, Torture, Medical content, Murder, Blood, and Child death

siu_rose's review

challenging dark medium-paced

5.0

I thought this was extremely well written and vivid.  The author wove together strands of different stories quite well.  The scale encompasses details and the big picture.  I definitely plan to read more of his books. 

The creepy factor of the serial killer meant that I read this slowly because sometimes I just didn’t want to read it. But it was a good read overall.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Murder, and Child death

amriherd's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

3.75

Not my favorite Larson, but for my add brain it was great. Murder chapter, fair chapter, murder chapter, fair chapter.  Never left you in one place long enough to get bored. Enjoyed the fair aspects the most, but didn't love the way the Holmes chapters were organized and presented. Great narrator on the audio though.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Murder, Child death, and Violence

mmp1002's review against another edition

dark informative tense slow-paced

3.5

Larson does an excellent job in making the reader feel as the architects and engineers do. Perhaps too good of a job, as the first two-thirds dragged. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Terminal illness, Violence, Murder, and Child death

marie33's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious fast-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Child death, and Death

elg1105's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Death, Blood, Violence, and Child death

bring_me_a_book's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, Death, Child death, Deadnaming, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Suicide, and Torture

pagesfromhome's review

dark informative slow-paced

2.75

This was my first dive into Erik Larson's writing, and while I loved his style (lots of details that really put you in a moment), I think this fell a little bit flat for me. It felt like he just wanted to write a book about the World's Fair, but decided to throw in the story of H.H. Holmes to make it a bit more interesting. From what the book tells, there's essentially no connection between Holmes and the Fair, so pushing them into a book together doesn't make sense.

That said, I loved the sections about the fair and genuinely wish that had been the entirety of the book rather than being pulled between the two different stories. Even though there are times when Larson dives into characters with no real conclusion on them until the last part of the book, he does such a vivid job of building them that you kind of forgive it. All in all, not a waste of a read, but I doubt I'll be reading it again or thinking too much about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Kidnapping

dobermaier's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Racism, and Child death

Minor: Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Kidnapping