Reviews

The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg

medusa_frost1's review

2.0

I confess, I skipped whole chapters. This was long, slow and well...I found it boring.
That's all I'll say. No spoilers here. In my opinion there's nothing to spoil. It's not that it was badly written, only endless. I read every work up to chapter 10, then I started reading every other chapter and couldn't tell the difference.
I'm usually much more kind than this. Maybe it's me and not the book?

bemgrace's review

informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

ntawn0's review

5.0

Such an interesting take on the true crime genre, Copley Eisenberg really interrogates the genre and its connection to stereotypes and media circuses, dismantling it in many ways. The shorter sections accounting her time in West Virginia were interesting, although could at times feel as though they were interrupting the main story of the murders; however, after finishing, I can appreciate the structure she was going for and how it increases some of the thematic emphasis. Likewise, her prose is very good, better than I would have thought picking it up given that many books in this genre tend to not be as focused on that. Her exploration of Appalachia and its presentation within and without the region is also fascinating. Highly recommend!

lou_weed's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

2.0

gemilyca3's review

mysterious slow-paced

2.0

There were a lot of things wrong with this book. Mainly that it is categorized as a true crime book, but most of the actual text is the author's memoirs. The details of the crime were basically listed at the beginning of the book. Everything else was just so borring. The narrator of the audiobook was the author and she, sadly, wasn't a great narrator. 
The book had potential but it was poorly executed. The details of the crime interspersed with the authors time in West Virginia did not make for a cohesive story. The only connection between the author and the crime was that they were both in West Virginia. 
I think if the author was better able to connect what she was experiencing in West Virginia with the crime that took place 20+ years earlier, it would maybe have made more sense. Overall I was very disappointed.

nepios's review

dark informative reflective medium-paced

2.0

oisin175's review

dark slow-paced

2.0

This was really two different books and the memoir segments barely fit in or connect with the rainbow murders story. It's not great as a true crime as it doesn't really raise anything new and just kind of points to the two different stories of the murder and shrugs. So, it doesn't raise much new information, doesn't present a solution to the crime, and spends an inordinate amount of space on the rambling thoughts of the author as she works in Pocahontas County. Not really sure I got much from this.

melissa_who_reads's review against another edition

4.0

Having spent a good part of my childhood in West Virginia, not far from Pocahontas County, I was enthralled with this outsider's perspective of West Virginia. I was very interested in the stories of the women involved, both the two that were murdered and the one who did not; I was less interested in the author's own coming-of-age story, although there were moments that was fascinating as well. The story of the investigation is fascinating; you can see where it went wrong, and where people could not overcome their own assumptions. And also how investigations can be tainted by the need to fit the story to the assumptions about the murders, about the locals, about the interactions of men and women. There's a lot she gets right about West Virginia, including the beauty of the land and the longing to go back when folks from there move away. Also, the way the murders of these two women who had never been to West Virginia before, and didn't get much time there at all before they were murdered - the way their murders haunted the local population for decades. Murder affects all who come in contact with it, from the community to the family to those trying to figure out "who dun it" - and this book beautifully illustrates the story of murder isn't just the story of murderer and victims. It ripples on down the decades, and takes its toll on many.

pearljanecatmama's review

3.0

Some parts were utterly fascinating, other parts unspeakably boring.

lachimolala981's review against another edition

1.0

*Edited to add:
From reading reviews, especially from people who live and/or grew up in WV, this book is largely an exploitation. I hope that the author reads reviews of this book and chooses to do better. Just because you can write doesn't mean you should.

This feels like a college student's term paper. The narration by the author wasn't the best choice as she clearly isn't skilled in narration. In the hands of a trained narrator, this could have been easier to follow and more interesting. In the hands of the author, breaks between speaking parties and enunciation in wrong areas makes this audiobook extremely difficult to follow and rather tedious. There are interesting areas, such as the demographics of West Virginian area and the ways in which juries perceive experts, witnesses, information, etc. I would possibly be interested in reading more from this author but I wouldn't listen to another narration by her.