Reviews with content warning for Stalking - Notes on an Execution

Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka

48 reviews

vanessa_black_03's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book will make you think and think. It should be read by everybody who has ever thought about the person behind the unmistakable cloud of death by a killer.
Shows us how circumstances lend to our making but justifying anything you do with it and not acknoledging a problem within you is all that makes the difference

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shostakofish's review

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I have a complicated relationship with True Crime style media. One the one hand: It's deeply interesting and a look into very real issues society sometimes would rather ignore. On the other hand it's rife with exploitation, and often falls into the trap of glorifying male violence and reducing women to objects violence is inflicted on.

This book does a fantastic job avoiding those pitfalls. It takes a nuanced look at a killer and the women in his life including those he kills. Every single one is shown as a full human, with their first person perspectives allowing for depth and introspection. Each character is biased in their own realistic ways but the book as a whole takes a determinately neutral stance on the issues it brings up, allowing the reader to form their own opinions on things like male violence, the prison system and death penalty, mental health support, and media for murder.

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emmehooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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bee_isreading's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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emma_ekb's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“There are millions of men out there who want to hurt women—people seem to think that Ansel Packer is extraordinary, because he actually did.”

wowwwwwwww. i couldn’t put this book down. the story is essentially a critique of modern true crime narratives: the story of a serial killer, told primarily through the women who knew him or survived him.

other key themes/questions:
- what is the line between good and evil? can one person ever truly be just evil, or just good?
- nature v. nurture: how much does our past define our future?
- how do our individual choices affect the course of our lives and in turn, the course of history?
- what is justice? is achieving or finding justice even possible?
- how do we as a society treat victims?
- who remembers us when we’re gone? how can we be remembered without those who love us?

the author writes with such precision and poetry - i just love the way she describes things and how she seems to capture so many tiny details in so few words. more than anything, this book made me think.

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