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oddfigg 's review for:
Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession
by Rachel Monroe
This is one hot mess of a book.
The introduction reads like a bad article someone with an interest in true crime might dig up on the internet, read a little bit of, click elsewhere, and then forget entirely. By the time I made it to the last page (heaven help me, somehow I made it) it was more than eminently clear that whatever fascination the author might have originally held for true crime had soured. And with it, went whatever interesting magic this book might have held.
Here’s a thought: maybe don’t judge and alienate the people who will be interested in reading your book? I am all for a critical look at whatever the hell you want, and people are more than entitled to their own opinions (as I sit here and type mine out), but the descriptions of the people attending CrimeCon in the first and last section of this book felt savagely judgmental to me. The author’s ire is also focused mainly at women (problematic to say the least!) and she doesn’t really explore the reasons behind the fascination with crime. That’s the book I want to read.
Look. Is there an issue with romanticizing serial killers and exploiting real people’s trauma and loss for the sake of entertainment? Yes, I think there definitely is. And it’s definitely something to keep in mind before you buy that shirt with Gacy’s face on it. But I also think it’s OK to be interested, to want to explore the details, to want to know why. It’s part of the human condition to face death, and to do it head-on is kind of badass. If we can just know what happened to JonBenet or see what makes someone like Dahmer tick, then maybe, just maybe . . . everything else that’s exploding around us won’t seem so out of control. Who knows. Isn’t it worth a try?
The book goes on to explore four different perspectives(?) of crime by looking at a few high-profile cases and crime related personalities. I am definitely well-versed in crime, but I have to say that all of the stories chosen for the book have been covered so extensively that I felt the author didn’t really have anything interesting or new to add. In each chapter, there were also some random memoir-y stuff that felt extremely out of place.
This structure just felt so hodge-podge to me. None of the ideas from chapter to chapter strung together. The book felt like it needed a strong developmental edit. I would have been more interested if it have focused on one of the four chapters more fully, or incorporated a bunch of vignettes on each chapter instead of just one.
The book also ends on such a sour note, it just put me off the whole thing. Even if it had some interesting ideas here and there, it comes down so negatively on the whole idea, the whole field of true crime, that I’m left wondering why the author even wrote the book at all. Doesn’t she know who the book is going to be marketed to?
My thanks to Scribner Books for my copy of this one to read and review.
The introduction reads like a bad article someone with an interest in true crime might dig up on the internet, read a little bit of, click elsewhere, and then forget entirely. By the time I made it to the last page (heaven help me, somehow I made it) it was more than eminently clear that whatever fascination the author might have originally held for true crime had soured. And with it, went whatever interesting magic this book might have held.
Here’s a thought: maybe don’t judge and alienate the people who will be interested in reading your book? I am all for a critical look at whatever the hell you want, and people are more than entitled to their own opinions (as I sit here and type mine out), but the descriptions of the people attending CrimeCon in the first and last section of this book felt savagely judgmental to me. The author’s ire is also focused mainly at women (problematic to say the least!) and she doesn’t really explore the reasons behind the fascination with crime. That’s the book I want to read.
Look. Is there an issue with romanticizing serial killers and exploiting real people’s trauma and loss for the sake of entertainment? Yes, I think there definitely is. And it’s definitely something to keep in mind before you buy that shirt with Gacy’s face on it. But I also think it’s OK to be interested, to want to explore the details, to want to know why. It’s part of the human condition to face death, and to do it head-on is kind of badass. If we can just know what happened to JonBenet or see what makes someone like Dahmer tick, then maybe, just maybe . . . everything else that’s exploding around us won’t seem so out of control. Who knows. Isn’t it worth a try?
The book goes on to explore four different perspectives(?) of crime by looking at a few high-profile cases and crime related personalities. I am definitely well-versed in crime, but I have to say that all of the stories chosen for the book have been covered so extensively that I felt the author didn’t really have anything interesting or new to add. In each chapter, there were also some random memoir-y stuff that felt extremely out of place.
This structure just felt so hodge-podge to me. None of the ideas from chapter to chapter strung together. The book felt like it needed a strong developmental edit. I would have been more interested if it have focused on one of the four chapters more fully, or incorporated a bunch of vignettes on each chapter instead of just one.
The book also ends on such a sour note, it just put me off the whole thing. Even if it had some interesting ideas here and there, it comes down so negatively on the whole idea, the whole field of true crime, that I’m left wondering why the author even wrote the book at all. Doesn’t she know who the book is going to be marketed to?
My thanks to Scribner Books for my copy of this one to read and review.