Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer by Liza Rodman

4 reviews

librarymouse's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

4.5

The Babysitter shows life in Provincetown MA in the 1906s through a mix of personal memoir and synthesizing a timeline of Tony Costa's life and crimes. There was an astounding amount of casual drug use, alcoholism, and a combination of the two, and the manic energy that cocktail of drugs creates was captured really well by Rodman's descriptions of the adults in her life. It was fully not the intention of the book, but having friends from MA and fond memories of visiting them, the vivid description of Portuguese foods and familiar locations made me smile. The happy memories Liza Rodman shares are intimate and nostalgic. This book is written with stunning detail, showing both the best and the worst the era and location had to offer. 

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foreverinastory's review against another edition

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challenging informative slow-paced

3.0

This was interesting.

CWs: child abuse/neglect, murder, drug use/abuse, addiction, rape, sexual violence, emotional abuse, sexual assault, parental abandonment, domestic abuse, gore, dismemberment, violence, alcoholism, death, physical abuse, suicide, mental illness, adult/minor relationship, toxic relationship, blood, homophobia, f-slur, misogyny, sexual content. Moderate: animal cruelty, kidnapping, pedophilia, suicidal thoughts, torture, suicide attempt, injury/injury detail, fatphobia, body shaming, self harm, abortion, vomit, excrement.

 

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cate_with_a_c's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Dark and chilling but very good. Right off the bat it’s made clear that Liza was emotionally and verbally abused by her mother and took every opportunity to leave her kids with a sitter. 
Told by two narratives it alternates between Liza the girl being babysat and her life and Tony the babysitter. The signal phrases hinting towards sad and upsetting content is very clear and gives the reader a chance to skip over a paragraph if needed while still understanding what happened. 
Very interesting and I think it was as respectfully told as it could be. 

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nellkristen's review against another edition

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dark informative sad slow-paced

2.5

It started pretty interesting but I got pretty bored pretty fast. Once I lost interest, I couldn’t get it back. 

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