Reviews tagging 'Death'

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

162 reviews

hannahbee_97's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.25

The narration on this was well done. I didn’t know anything about the Osage murders before reading this, it left me absolutely horrified and irate. It’s so important to remember the disgusting history of oppression that the US is built on and to take action against the ways that oppression continues to exist. The last third of the book hit me hardest.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Xenophobia, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, and Colonisation

Moderate: Gun violence, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

zsabella's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Racism, Violence, Murder, and Colonisation

Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Grief, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

doreneemi's review

dark informative sad tense fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racism, Forced institutionalization, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Grief and Alcohol

Minor: Chronic illness, Infidelity, and Forced institutionalization

mariakureads's review against another edition

dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Never having read anything by Grann prior, I wasn't sure what to expect, but this was highly detailed and researched with respect and truth to all parties involved.

There's a lot of missing information when it comes to Native Americans and US history-One can guess that a lot more than we probably are aware of, thanks partly to this book. I had no idea, none, that this systematic discriminations and killings were happening Oklahoma and to the Osage in such a cold blooded way until this book.

This book was so well researched that I can't imagine the years and the time needed to put this together but I was left with a lot of emotion and some questions which I'm sure Grann was too as he researched and put this together because it's oddly fascinating that this happened for as long as it did but there's really no limit to man's greed and for a lot of the guilty, their greed exceeded what I could have imagined.
This book highlights how a group of people, men and women, were able to plan and execute murders for their greed and how deep that corruption ran even as the Osage were asking and requesting for help with no avail from the government until the amount of the mysterious deaths was too much to overlook. 

I'm a ball of emotions still, hours after I finished this, to really put into words how I'm flabbergasted and tensely in awe of this because it's not just distant past. A lot of the surviving members are still having to deal with this portion of their history, in a familial and at larger community aspect, because of how deep the corruption was that in some cases it was the White spouses that were involved and that's something that is deplorable and I have a hard time trying to rationalize that.

Grann did an amazing  job of balancing historical information  and providing it such a written way that spoke of the Osage's civilization with respect to race, perspective, culture, and colonialism. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder, and Colonisation

Moderate: Alcoholism

lindseyhall44's review

challenging dark

5.0

One of the best reads I’ve encountered, and one of the most challenging. I pains me to think about all that the Osage suffered, and the fact that such a horrifying part of history has been erased and  forgotten for all these years.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, and Racism

siriface's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Racism, Police brutality, and Murder

gabbyeleene's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Animal death, Child death, and Colonisation

sheriffrockyraccoon's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious sad fast-paced

4.0

While I am a movie person and obviously watched the Oscars this year where its movie adaptation was frequently nominated, I had managed to avoid knowing much about the Osage murders before reading this book.

David Grann’s writing is fantastic. He manages to keep his language accessible and fluid while also not deviating too far from the facts of the case. This book is part thriller, part nonfiction, and while it is easy to cross that line into sensationalism, I believe Grann worked incredibly hard to make sure the families of the victims were heard and not drowned out by the “true crime” aspects of the case.

The last chapter, “A Case Unsolved”, devastated me. Just when you think there has been justice for these people ignored by the U.S. government, you see how far the conspiracy goes. It was heartbreaking and real, which I appreciated considering how easy it is today to write a true crime story in the form of a ghost story. This book served as a brutal reminder of the treatment Indigenous Americans have endured- and still endure- at the hands of the government.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in U.S. history, especially that of the Wild West. While it may be after the period we consider “Western”, it holds the same ideology even as the country moves into a different era. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Genocide, Racism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Classism

amberboo61997's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.25

Killers of the Flower Moon is an intense, yet fascinating true-crime historical narrative where David Grann tells the story of the Osage Murders from a straight-forward and almost impartial point of view. The short length of the book may surprise people given the subject matter, but a lot of this tale is tainted with false reports, hearsay, and limited information thus stunting Grann's (and even the FBI's) ability to tell the entire "truth". It also doesn't help that while writing the book Grann uncovered numerous other murders and conspiracies that added onto the insanity of a story that was already riddled with disbelief and purposefully hidden from public knowledge. 
I believe the book is a good read even if a common critique is its lack of descriptive details into certain parts or aspects of the subject matter. It's a good introduction if you want to look into American stories hidden or deleted from history by the "winners" and shows how a government organization such as the FBI began and operated on its own self-serving needs.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Physical abuse, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Minor: Alcoholism and Domestic abuse