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kate_bev 's review for:
While I appreciate the author’s hard work in researching and including contextual information, I felt burdened by all of the historical and political discussions. The first section was almost completely devoted to setting up the societal conditions of Kansas and surrounding territories in the mid 1800s. While some of the information came into play later on in the book, I felt most of it was unnecessary. At the end of the day, most people picking up this book just want to know about the murders and subsequent search for the killers. I really didn’t need to know a lot of information the author put in this book.
I’ve seen some critiques about the style of this book. This is a classic example of “new journalism.” If you’ve read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote then you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s essentially creative nonfiction. People are reading this and expecting every single word to be 100% factual. This happened over 100 years ago. If the author relied strictly on quoted material then this book would be 5 short, boring pages. The imagery and emotion that needs to be there in order to make this story even remotely readable is the result of the author taking creative liberties. In my opinion, it doesn’t take anything away from the known facts of the story. Everyone should read the Introduction to this book to get a better idea of the author’s research process and their approach to the story.
Overall, it took me a long time to read this book because I had to wade through a bunch of historical ramblings just to get to the few sections that were actually interesting to me. To fully enjoy this book you need to be invested in true crime AND history. If you’re just here for true crime, you’re going to be disappointed.
I’ve seen some critiques about the style of this book. This is a classic example of “new journalism.” If you’ve read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote then you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s essentially creative nonfiction. People are reading this and expecting every single word to be 100% factual. This happened over 100 years ago. If the author relied strictly on quoted material then this book would be 5 short, boring pages. The imagery and emotion that needs to be there in order to make this story even remotely readable is the result of the author taking creative liberties. In my opinion, it doesn’t take anything away from the known facts of the story. Everyone should read the Introduction to this book to get a better idea of the author’s research process and their approach to the story.
Overall, it took me a long time to read this book because I had to wade through a bunch of historical ramblings just to get to the few sections that were actually interesting to me. To fully enjoy this book you need to be invested in true crime AND history. If you’re just here for true crime, you’re going to be disappointed.