Reviews - The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World

471 reviews for:

The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World

The book was interesting but I read it in large part because I wanted have a better understanding of how this really life story impacted Lolita, a book I haven’t read but have intended to for years. While the facts of the story are interesting, I think it’s a slow read and there is so much more left unresolved that I’d like to understand that overall, it felt a little flat. If I weren’t reading this book to better understand the literary work, Lolita, it would have been hard to get through. You can definitely find another true crime book better than this. However, it is very interesting to read in connection with Lolita.

cassiecraycray's review

3.5

dark sad slow-paced

"With this book, Sally Horner takes precedence. Like the butterflies that Vladimir Nabokov so loved, she emerges from the cage of both fiction and fact, ready to fly free."

When I started this book I had never heard of Sally Horners case, nor have I read Lolita.
This book was split into incredibly sad and incredibly frustrating.
Learning about Sally's case and her life afterwards was devastating. She lead a short life so full of sorrow, it was difficult to get through.
The parts about Nabokov were more frustrating to me. It held alot about how he wrote and his life but it seemed like alot of fluff, or not extremely necessary to the story. Chapter 18, When Nabokov (really) learned about Sally, really got into the bones of wether or not he knew of Sally horners case while he was writing Lolita.
This book made some interesting connections from Sally's case to the book Lolita. While no one can say true or false expect for Nabokov, it was interesting to read about.

"Sally Horner can't be cast aside so easily.....A girl immortalized, and forever trapped, in the pages of a classic novel of satire and sadness, like a butterfly with wings damaged before ever having the chance to fly."

ckbarnard_0317's review

4.0

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

wenniebiss's review

3.0

medium-paced

thuglibrarian's review

5.0

Most everyone is familiar with "Lolita," Nabokov's most famous work. What isn't so well known is that it mirrored a true crime/ abduction case in 1948. The case of Sally Horner is a sad one, and has long been forgotten by the general public. What's astounding is that during the time of Sally's abduction, Nabokov was consumed with the theme of prepubescent girls with older men. Did he write Lolita based on Sally? Readers will have to read the book and decide for themselves.

I read an advance copy and was not compensated.