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A review by sarasreading
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
3.25
I can totally see how this became a hit and completely redefined the way true crime was written. I didn't think it would take too long to read when I first started, and my copy wasn't very thick, but this book is dense. I could read for 45 minutes and discover that I'd only read 10-12 pages.
It's also probably the first book where I've had to write out all the names, because the first third or so of the book throws dozens of people at you, some you never really see again, and some you do. So it's hard to know who is going to be important until the story unfolds.
Also, as you get deeper into the book, it becomes less about the true crime, and morphs into a study of the killers' lives, one in particular. By the end it's obvious that this was done to show that criminal psychology is complex and not as black and white as it was believed back in the 1950s. But the reader doesn't really know that while slogging through the middle of the book, which is bogged down with pages and pages of letters and biopyschosocial history.
Still, glad I read it, and it's probably a must for any true crime lover.
It's also probably the first book where I've had to write out all the names, because the first third or so of the book throws dozens of people at you, some you never really see again, and some you do. So it's hard to know who is going to be important until the story unfolds.
Also, as you get deeper into the book, it becomes less about the true crime, and morphs into a study of the killers' lives, one in particular. By the end it's obvious that this was done to show that criminal psychology is complex and not as black and white as it was believed back in the 1950s. But the reader doesn't really know that while slogging through the middle of the book, which is bogged down with pages and pages of letters and biopyschosocial history.
Still, glad I read it, and it's probably a must for any true crime lover.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Murder, Child death, Racial slurs, and Gun violence
Moderate: Pedophilia