Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Devil in the White City (Abridged): Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

This was hard for me to get into in the first 1/3 of the book, which is basically the background of the architects and the lead up to starting the building for the fair. There are three stories tangled together. The chapters bounce between the two main stories - the fair itself, and the story of H H Holmes, and the story of Prendergast just feels...out of place. It's tacked onto the end of some of the other chapters; the whole tale could take one chapter if filled with the writers flowery language and over-descriptive explanations. It feels like it was an afterthought... "Hey! it's kinda kooky...let's just squeeze it in here."

I skimmed a LOT of pages about the architects, their gout, bad teeth, and overall poor health. Once we get to actually building the fair and such, it starts to pick up a bit. Once the fair is in full swing, things are interesting - the exhibits, the events, etc. And of course Holmes' story is interesting and could have easily been a separate book (which may have been a better idea than trying to meld the two).

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camilleion's review against another edition

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informative inspiring slow-paced

4.0

90% architectural history, 10% true crime.

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suzquinn97's review against another edition

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dark informative mysterious medium-paced

5.0

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helperdog's review against another edition

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dark informative medium-paced

3.0

I listened to this book. I listen to a lot of books because I drive a lot. They obviously chose a narrator with experience who enunciated clearly and seemed to be intentional with his pronunciations and tone. However every time he would talk my mind would just… go somewhere. I found myself making grocery lists, thinking of my day or things I had to do - sometimes even thinking about my inability to listen to this man. I would have to be intentional myself about paying attention to the story. There were so many interesting points and when I could listen I did learn a lot about the fair and it’s history. Also, the story really was an odd mash up of two very different stories.

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wheelygoodreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

1.75

I almost put this book down multiple times, as it's very slow to get going, and even then only half of the story, the serial killer portion, was really keeping me engaged.

Many parts seemed to drag on, no helped by the formatting—this book really could have used shorter chapters, rather than longer sections. Getting through this felt like work.

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