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tblossom1's review against another edition
3.0
Well written
This book covers about anything anyone might want to know about the case. Worth the read, just have a hot minute
This book covers about anything anyone might want to know about the case. Worth the read, just have a hot minute
melimish's review
4.0
I enjoyed the book but the authors voice annoyed me and honestly felt like she couldn't read very well. I was perplexed about this.
annahendi's review
4.0
A VERY in depth investigation into Diane Downs. At times I feel like the author gets a bit carried away with the details (all the names being thrown out gets a bit tiresome), but a very well written true crime novel!
situationnormal's review against another edition
4.0
I wanted to read this a few years ago when I first started being interested in true crime books (even though they always give me nightmares) but haven't thought much about it since. Threw it on my autumn reading list just because I figured it was probably goosebump inducing...and I definitely wasn't wrong. I've had trouble sleeping, anyway, because of an ear infection, but every time I fall asleep I wake up in a cold sweat because of this book. I'm not a child anymore, I'm not a mom, but the chilling descriptions of the way this woman talks are enough to creep me out permanently. Ann Rule is honestly the queen of true crime, and her writing vividly (sometimes a little too vividly for me) captures the horror of the crimes and the woman who committed them.
bookishblond's review against another edition
2.0
That's it... I'm done with Ann Rule. Peace, sister.
I've been in the mood for true crime lately, and I was inspired to pick up Small Sacrifices by my fond memories of Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, which I read in high school. I remember really enjoying that book, but after finishing this one I'm doubting my memories. I am SO disappointed with Small Sacrifices.
For the life of me, I don't understand what Rule saw in Diane Downs that made her want to write a five-hundred-page book about her. Diane shot her three young children, killing one and severely injuring the other two, and the story ends there. Nothing about Diane or her life is interesting enough to fill five hundred pages. About one hundred of those pages is spent on Diane's trial, and it reads like a courtroom transcript. Rule's writing adds nothing to the text, but instead the reader must slog through pages and pages of dialogue, which is boring. This whole book is boring, and I'm angry that I spent so much time reading it. If you want to read about this case, check out the Wikipedia page, but please don't repeat my mistake.
This book makes it very clear that Ann Rule is not a journalist. She tries very hard to be objective in her writing, but any objectivity is at odds with Rule's storytelling. She wants to tell you a story, but the story is often one-sided. This was most apparent in Rule's handling of Diane's childhood. Rule briefly mentions that she corresponded with Diane when she was in prison, and she quotes extensively from these letters. The result is that we only get to hear about Diane's early life in Diane's own voice: pages and pages about poor, poor Diane the victim. And it really seems like Rule didn't do any fact-checking. For example, Diane tells Rule about an incident where her father was abusing her while driving around in their car, and they got pulled over by the police. Diane describes in detail what happened at that traffic stop, and Rule briefly mentions that this story couldn't be corroborated by the officer's report. What? One of the themes in this book is that Diane is highly manipulative: she manipulated virtually everyone in her life, especially her boyfriends. She wrote countless letters and diary entries, which Rule warned us should be taken with a grain of salt: Diane used these writings to manipulate. Having established that, it's absurd for Rule to use Diane's account as conclusive evidence on her early life. Rule doesn't acknowledge that Diane could be manipulating her, but instead uses Diane's prison letters to up the word count in her book. If Diane is as hungry for attention as Rule says she is, doesn't it follow that Diane would happily use a writer to get even more attention? It's true that Rule is a former police woman, not a journalist, but this huge blindspot really turned me off.
There were also a lot of little things here that irked me. Diane lived most of her life in Arizona, so of course Rule describes Arizona and the Phoenix metro area endlessly. As an Arizona resident, I cringed every time Rule described the cacti, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and the heat. Which was hundreds of times. I think she was trying to make Arizona seem like an exotic locale, but it just didn't work, especially since so much of it was just wrong. In one scene, Rule mentions that it's 115 at 7 AM in May. There is just no way it was that hot. It gets to be 115 during the heat of the day in July, not during the mornings in May, when it would be cool and breezy. In another scene, Rule describes the climate: "the pH factor of the desert - acid - had eroded the copper and eaten even into the signature lands and grooves..." This is just false. The Sonoran desert is alkaline, the opposite of acidic. Maybe it's a mistake, but even so, a mistake like that just makes me wonder what else Rule got sloppy on.
Everyone says that this is Rule's best book after The Stranger Beside Me. If that's the case, I won't be reading any more Ann Rule. There are so many excellent true crime books out there that are meticulously researched and engagingly written, and this is just not one of them.
I've been in the mood for true crime lately, and I was inspired to pick up Small Sacrifices by my fond memories of Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, which I read in high school. I remember really enjoying that book, but after finishing this one I'm doubting my memories. I am SO disappointed with Small Sacrifices.
For the life of me, I don't understand what Rule saw in Diane Downs that made her want to write a five-hundred-page book about her. Diane shot her three young children, killing one and severely injuring the other two, and the story ends there. Nothing about Diane or her life is interesting enough to fill five hundred pages. About one hundred of those pages is spent on Diane's trial, and it reads like a courtroom transcript. Rule's writing adds nothing to the text, but instead the reader must slog through pages and pages of dialogue, which is boring. This whole book is boring, and I'm angry that I spent so much time reading it. If you want to read about this case, check out the Wikipedia page, but please don't repeat my mistake.
This book makes it very clear that Ann Rule is not a journalist. She tries very hard to be objective in her writing, but any objectivity is at odds with Rule's storytelling. She wants to tell you a story, but the story is often one-sided. This was most apparent in Rule's handling of Diane's childhood. Rule briefly mentions that she corresponded with Diane when she was in prison, and she quotes extensively from these letters. The result is that we only get to hear about Diane's early life in Diane's own voice: pages and pages about poor, poor Diane the victim. And it really seems like Rule didn't do any fact-checking. For example, Diane tells Rule about an incident where her father was abusing her while driving around in their car, and they got pulled over by the police. Diane describes in detail what happened at that traffic stop, and Rule briefly mentions that this story couldn't be corroborated by the officer's report. What? One of the themes in this book is that Diane is highly manipulative: she manipulated virtually everyone in her life, especially her boyfriends. She wrote countless letters and diary entries, which Rule warned us should be taken with a grain of salt: Diane used these writings to manipulate. Having established that, it's absurd for Rule to use Diane's account as conclusive evidence on her early life. Rule doesn't acknowledge that Diane could be manipulating her, but instead uses Diane's prison letters to up the word count in her book. If Diane is as hungry for attention as Rule says she is, doesn't it follow that Diane would happily use a writer to get even more attention? It's true that Rule is a former police woman, not a journalist, but this huge blindspot really turned me off.
There were also a lot of little things here that irked me. Diane lived most of her life in Arizona, so of course Rule describes Arizona and the Phoenix metro area endlessly. As an Arizona resident, I cringed every time Rule described the cacti, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and the heat. Which was hundreds of times. I think she was trying to make Arizona seem like an exotic locale, but it just didn't work, especially since so much of it was just wrong. In one scene, Rule mentions that it's 115 at 7 AM in May. There is just no way it was that hot. It gets to be 115 during the heat of the day in July, not during the mornings in May, when it would be cool and breezy. In another scene, Rule describes the climate: "the pH factor of the desert - acid - had eroded the copper and eaten even into the signature lands and grooves..." This is just false. The Sonoran desert is alkaline, the opposite of acidic. Maybe it's a mistake, but even so, a mistake like that just makes me wonder what else Rule got sloppy on.
Everyone says that this is Rule's best book after The Stranger Beside Me. If that's the case, I won't be reading any more Ann Rule. There are so many excellent true crime books out there that are meticulously researched and engagingly written, and this is just not one of them.
averageawkwardasian's review against another edition
4.0
I went the other way and listened to Becky Babcock's side of the story in a podcast before reading the book. So I had a brief understanding of the case but did not fully know how big of a case it actually was.
This is a very capturing book. It felt slow and was a bit difficult to follow after the first 1/3 but, just like the real events, it went down very quickly once after the arrest.
The case was very complex, and I really like how the book presented the entire story very well. Even with many twists and intricate details I didn't feel lost as the story went on. The author painted a very vivid picture of who Diane Downs was.
This is a very capturing book. It felt slow and was a bit difficult to follow after the first 1/3 but, just like the real events, it went down very quickly once after the arrest.
The case was very complex, and I really like how the book presented the entire story very well. Even with many twists and intricate details I didn't feel lost as the story went on. The author painted a very vivid picture of who Diane Downs was.