Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

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

17 reviews

audra_etta's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Gore

Minor: Suicide

reddeddy's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Torture, Violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Child abuse, Gore, Child death, Death, Drug use, Body horror, Confinement, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Infidelity

Moderate: Abandonment, Abortion, Animal death, Blood, Terminal illness, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Chronic illness, Classism, Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, and Gun violence

librarymouse's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

3.75

The literary descriptions and firsthand accounts of the fair, and the effort and love put into it's design and creation made me wish I could have attended. The detailed descriptions of Holmes' murders and his disarmingly charming personality made me glad that I was born over a full century after 1893. I like greatly enjoyed The Devil in the White City, the second half was a far easier read than the first. I'm not sure if I've retained as much of the information about the fair's designers and the events that took place while it was open as I wanted to. While interesting, the section about the initial design process and the political lobbying that took place in order to get the fair to occur in Chicago read similarly to a textbook, in stark contrast with the narrative way the rest of the history was told. Overall, an informative and interesting read. I would use enjoyable to describe the writing, but not the content.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Gore, Blood, Grief, Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, Abortion, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Suicide, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, and Misogyny

Moderate: Racial slurs

Minor: Xenophobia

homoconnor's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious tense slow-paced

3.75

Interested in a book about the history of the World’s Fair and surrounding events? This is definitely the read for you. It is extremely well researched and the author does manage to make you feel like you’ve been dropped in the middle of Chicago in the 1880s.

For me, where it fell short came in a couple places; one, this book drags in some places. I often found myself not caring about certain details of the fair because there were ones I wanted to hear about more (I found Olmstead and the creation of the Ferris Wheel to be my favorite parts to read about, while on the other hand I was never particularly sure why I was reading about Buffalo Bill or Sol Bloom). Two, the story of Holmes seemed to come from a place of the author wanting to tell the story of the fair but needing something more enticing to draw more readers in. The chapters focusing on him are short and give very little information about his actual crimes, then at the end it’s all very rushed to explain everything he didn’t explain earlier. I get that Holmes’ crimes weren’t discovered for a while, but things like that didn’t seem to matter with the fair chapters so I wish that wasn’t the case with Holmes’ chapters.

I think the conclusion here is to go into it knowing that the story isn’t really about Holmes, more about the fact that there was this force of evil existing at the same time as the fair. And honestly, I can appreciate a story that doesn’t get too deep into gruesome details or tries to explain Holmes’ unexplainable mind.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Minor: Suicide

alliemikennareads's review

dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

The Devil in the White City was 10 hours of audio at 1.5 speed. I previously read it in physical format years ago and I must say I liked the audio format much better. 

Bullet point review: 

- I forgot how much the book discusses architecture; this got tedious at times. 
- I loved the rich detail about the Chicago worlds fair and the way the book splices the fair, its history, and HH Holmes’ evil deeds together. 
- I still found it a great form of true crime/ nonfiction that reads like fiction. 

TW for some really graphic descriptions of a slaughterhouse, gas chambers, suicide, murder of women and children and dead body discovery. 

If you can get past the graphic parts and like historical fiction, I’d definitely recommend this one!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Murder, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Child death, Child abuse, Body horror, Confinement, Death, and Medical trauma

renbot's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny informative mysterious slow-paced

4.5

An incredible journey where you truly care for the victories and failures of all of the characters

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Torture, Suicide, Stalking, Mental illness, Medical content, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Chronic illness, Child death, and Confinement

Moderate: Suicide, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Infidelity, Forced institutionalization, Dementia, Grief, and Gore

Minor: Cultural appropriation and Alcohol

Multiple women and children are murdered, some depictions are graphic, includes scenes of torture

salome_esteves's review

dark informative mysterious tense slow-paced

4.0

I love to read true stories written like fiction, and this book is a brilliant example of that. Erik Larson's writing is perfect for this genre. His depiction of Holmes' murder is thorough but not graphic. I am always on the fence of stories about serial killers, out of fear they will be too gruesome. But "The Devil in the White City" has the perfect balance of perfectly clear and somewhat suspenseful narration.
When it comes to the overall story, I think this book tried to do too much. I always thought that these murders had occurred in the fair, but the correlation between the events is almost non-existent. That's why I believe the story around the fair was too long. Although some facts were very interesting and I felt it was quite enjoyable, I don't think it was particularly necessary.
But I highly, highly recommend it, specially if, like me, you enjoy true crime stories and murder mysteries.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Death, Child death, and Torture

Minor: Suicide