Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

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

21 reviews

briandbremer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

3.75

The first two thirds of this book are fascinating and horrifying. Grann's writing is propulsive, driving this true story forward. He does a good job of introducing the horror of what happened to the Osage (both with the murders and generally) and centering it while also introducing you to all of the players. When the FBI finally cracks the case, the members of the conspiracy aren't merely names you're meeting for the first time.

The book peters out in the last third, however, consisting mostly of Gran 's interviews with living descedents of the Osage. Those interviews are interesting but they just lack the electricity of the first parts of the book and aren't helped at all by Grann's insistence of inserting himself into the story (something he did in Lost City of Z as well).

Most egregious though is Grann's rather dubious claim of "solving" one of the unsolved murders.  Basically, he reads an old FBI file that, paraphrasing, says "We think this guy did it because x but we can't prove it." Then Grann submits nothing but speculation that he FBI already had. 

It's a frustrating ending to an important story that needed to be told.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Racism, and Violence

sierrah_2101's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.25

 

"Virtually every element of society was complicit in the murderous system." -David Grann

I read Grann's novel in tandem with watching Scorsese's film, which only intensified both works' emotional impact on me. Grann's novel, which he spent over a decade researching, focused on Tom White's investigation into the 20-year terrorization of the Osage Nation. White recognized 24 murders associated with this reign, but Grann offers a significantly higher total: 60+. Throughout the novel, Grann offers many options for motives to these murders, but he offers you the above quote: money, power, greed, stolen through a government, a culture that was not only blind to it but complicit to it.

Although passionately researched by Grann over many years, my main gripe with the novel matched the opinion of DiCaprio: Upon reading the screenplay directly adapted from Grann's novel, DiCaprio realized how focused on White, and the true crime/procedural aspects of the novel. Thus, for the film, he offered that the story focuses more on the Osage themselves, specifically on Mollie Burkhart. This, emotionally, is where Grann stumbles the most. While packed with true crime intrigue, the novel focuses the vast majority of the pages on White, his history, and his contributions to the growth and development of the FBI.

This isn't to say that it was poorly written or didn't have a clear emphasis on empathy and self-awareness (of ourselves and the privileges we receive from our culture and system of government). Grann leads us through the mystery in such an intriguing way I could not put the book down for two days straight. His writing style, while simple, was straightforward in all the ways it needed to be. There was no beating around the bush on how horrible these people were. Not to mention, Grann pressed on to meet and interview many Osage families and connect tens more murders to the original "outbreak". It felt cathartic as a reader, and I hope it was even more so for the families that had been waiting a century for closure.

"Killers of the Flower Moon", the film and the novel, are heavy, heart-wrenching works that every American should be exposed to. The sheer nakedness of greed is still occurring today, with the same amount of deeply ingrained racism. Grann's novel taps into these ideas with beauty and tact, and both his and Scorsese's work. I only wish one day these stories will be told by American Indians themselves. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Racism, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Police brutality, and Medical trauma

Minor: Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism

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

hi_itsnatty's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

A fantastic story that is one of many on Turtle Island that needs to be consistently investigated all over. Overall, a good book to reflect and think about the stories still needing to be revisited and solved for families affected by MMIW cold cases.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

miggyfool's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

bookwormcat's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Blood, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Colonisation

omair's review against another edition

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.0

WARNING TO THOSE READING THIS BECAUSE OF THE FILM ADAPTATION:
After all of the hype and excitement I had for the film adaptation, I knew I had to read the source material as soon as possible. I had thought I would take to the book far more than the film, which I did thoroughly like, because I went into the film expecting more police procedural and less story of love

and betrayal

.

Yet as I read this book, I found myself agreeing more and more with the decisions the film made. This is not a slight against the book, but further praise for the film. The purposes of the film and the book are not one and the same, and so it is vital to anyone that, like me, is coming to read because/after the film to understand before they begin.

REVIEW THE BOOK INDEPENDENT OF THE FILM (which is what I intend to do)

Killers is as informative of a book as I could've imagined considering the personal story the primary focus is on. The book is overflowing with descriptors that will make you feel sorrow and anger, leave you wondering what humanity is and why it is missing. While only covering a handful of incidences, the cold factual presentation will leave you reeling, as if sensing how small a fraction the sample is compared to the population. All totaled, the official death count may

only be a couple dozen

but Grann will easily convince you that there were hundreds more victims during the Reign of Terror, and he may well be right.

If you can make it through the pain and sadness, there is a beautiful story here of a people's survival. The heart to endure and rally is as much a light as the era is an inky darkness. The book may focus on Thomas White, his team of agents, and their investigation that finally tore down the veil behind which the atrocities hid, but the real heroes are the Osage people.

For as strong as the book is in its cold, clearly well-researched, tone, I also found this to be a slight undoing. The voice can feel rather impersonal at times, leaving the reader as a student of history rather than immersed in the moment. This is why I agree with the decisions made for the film adaptation. Maybe I would feel differently not having known the details from the film first, I can never know for sure. But the progression of the book, and some of the detours along the way, played loose with risking a reader to set the book down only to never return and finish.

Ultimately, I will recommend this read to anyone with an interest in the Reign of Terror, interest in the era, an interest in the realities of White American Exceptionalism, or a morbid curiosity of a casual genocide. Sticking through some of the uneven pacing is well worth it for the resulting reverence of the Osage, and Mollie in particular, all carrying inside of them something no man could ever kill.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, Violence, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Chronic illness, Confinement, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Medical content, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, and Gaslighting

nrogers_1030's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense

5.0

It's one of those books you don't want to read because you know it's sad, but you know you need to. The injustice that the Osage people suffered is unimaginable. This book shines a light on Oklahoma's dark past.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Violence, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

vixenreader's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.25

A non-fiction book that moves with the urgency of a murder-mystery, this account of a forgotten injustice will boil your blood, especially since the crimes were saturated with racism against the Osage First Nations. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Child death, Infidelity, Medical content, Stalking, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Misogyny, Physical abuse, Police brutality, and Pregnancy

Be warned that there is a graphic bombing episode, medical content involving diabetes, covering up crime scenes, frequent poisoning, financial abuse, policies preventing First Nations from accessing their accounts, court scenes, and mention of “burning human flesh” from an electric chair.

randisworld's review

dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.0

This is an incredible story about how greed of white immigrants caused the deaths of so many Osage people. It’s a disgusting honestly but a very necessary read. There is so much hidden in American history and I am thankful that this story came to light. My only criticism was in the structure. The 2nd section, to me, could have just been a separate book. Trying to integrate the founding of the FBI into this didn’t work for me. So I gave it 4 stars. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Toxic relationship, and Classism

Moderate: Child death, Misogyny, Suicide, Violence, Murder, and Alcohol

The behavior of these men is truly disgusting. I was happy to see that Wikipedia has them characterized as serial killers. That’s exactly what it was.