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A review by jwtindall
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
3.0
3.5 ⭐️
I must have read a different book from everyone else. No doubt the stories and articles at the heart of these scandals/abuses/crimes are monumentally important, but this book felt much less so. I didn’t realize going into it that it’s much more about how Ronan struggled to get his articles published and much less about what that reporting was actually about (I was hoping for expanded, unabridged versions of the articles, to be honest).
Aside from the focus of the book, I thought the prologue and epilogue were weird and didn’t belong, and the writing was choppy and disjointed at moments, which makes me think that Farrow is much better at writing as a third-person journalist than a first-person narrator (I cared little to not at all about his own personal side stories, though I did appreciate getting insights into his sister’s perspective). And there were way too many names to remember without any guidance on how to keep track of them; I would have loved a list of characters in the front or footnotes throughout. Speaking of which, why did Ronan need to introduce each new subject, himself included, with bizarre physical descriptions that were often more critical than helpful?
In all, the stories at the heart of this book are shocking and heartbreaking, and I hope all the women impacted find justice. I did find myself constantly saying “WOW” out loud during this book as I learned more and more about the cover-ups surrounding them. So, in the end, I am grateful for the reporting done by Farrow and others that brought so many of these horrible men down. I just wish this book was better.
I must have read a different book from everyone else. No doubt the stories and articles at the heart of these scandals/abuses/crimes are monumentally important, but this book felt much less so. I didn’t realize going into it that it’s much more about how Ronan struggled to get his articles published and much less about what that reporting was actually about (I was hoping for expanded, unabridged versions of the articles, to be honest).
Aside from the focus of the book, I thought the prologue and epilogue were weird and didn’t belong, and the writing was choppy and disjointed at moments, which makes me think that Farrow is much better at writing as a third-person journalist than a first-person narrator (I cared little to not at all about his own personal side stories, though I did appreciate getting insights into his sister’s perspective). And there were way too many names to remember without any guidance on how to keep track of them; I would have loved a list of characters in the front or footnotes throughout. Speaking of which, why did Ronan need to introduce each new subject, himself included, with bizarre physical descriptions that were often more critical than helpful?
In all, the stories at the heart of this book are shocking and heartbreaking, and I hope all the women impacted find justice. I did find myself constantly saying “WOW” out loud during this book as I learned more and more about the cover-ups surrounding them. So, in the end, I am grateful for the reporting done by Farrow and others that brought so many of these horrible men down. I just wish this book was better.