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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A fictionalised telling of the black dahlia murder. A quintessential noir full of flawed characters and dark post-war Hollywood tropes.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book took some work to finish. I just could not get into it, so I wasn’t engaged with any characters. I found myself forgetting how some characters were even introduced or how some plot lines were drawn to an end (and there were many characters and many plot lines.) In the final run of the book, the part that I think was supposed to be thrilling with surprise twists, I just wasn’t interested and was ready for it to be over.
It took me a long time to slog through this book. The writing was super cheesy at times, and I read a Raymond Chandler book after I read this and if I would have read Chandler first, I would have put down this book 2 pages into it. Do yourself a favor and bypass this book and read something by [b:Raymond Chandler|2052|The Big Sleep|Raymond Chandler|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41AGA624Z5L._SL75_.jpg|1222673] instead! And if you've seen the movie, it ends TOTALLY different than the book. A main character's death is completely different (and cheesy as hell). Just awful.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was looking for something to read and a librarian friend said, "Have you ever read the LA Quartet" by James Ellroy? I had not but I am sure glad I did. This is the first of the four and is a great hardboiled noirish look at LA in the 1930s,40s.
Didn't really like this book so much. Maybe it's because I believe a different story. I think if you read into the real murder, this takes a different way out.
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced