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A review by bookishblond
Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder by Ann Rule
2.0
That's it... I'm done with Ann Rule. Peace, sister.
I've been in the mood for true crime lately, and I was inspired to pick up Small Sacrifices by my fond memories of Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, which I read in high school. I remember really enjoying that book, but after finishing this one I'm doubting my memories. I am SO disappointed with Small Sacrifices.
For the life of me, I don't understand what Rule saw in Diane Downs that made her want to write a five-hundred-page book about her. Diane shot her three young children, killing one and severely injuring the other two, and the story ends there. Nothing about Diane or her life is interesting enough to fill five hundred pages. About one hundred of those pages is spent on Diane's trial, and it reads like a courtroom transcript. Rule's writing adds nothing to the text, but instead the reader must slog through pages and pages of dialogue, which is boring. This whole book is boring, and I'm angry that I spent so much time reading it. If you want to read about this case, check out the Wikipedia page, but please don't repeat my mistake.
This book makes it very clear that Ann Rule is not a journalist. She tries very hard to be objective in her writing, but any objectivity is at odds with Rule's storytelling. She wants to tell you a story, but the story is often one-sided. This was most apparent in Rule's handling of Diane's childhood. Rule briefly mentions that she corresponded with Diane when she was in prison, and she quotes extensively from these letters. The result is that we only get to hear about Diane's early life in Diane's own voice: pages and pages about poor, poor Diane the victim. And it really seems like Rule didn't do any fact-checking. For example, Diane tells Rule about an incident where her father was abusing her while driving around in their car, and they got pulled over by the police. Diane describes in detail what happened at that traffic stop, and Rule briefly mentions that this story couldn't be corroborated by the officer's report. What? One of the themes in this book is that Diane is highly manipulative: she manipulated virtually everyone in her life, especially her boyfriends. She wrote countless letters and diary entries, which Rule warned us should be taken with a grain of salt: Diane used these writings to manipulate. Having established that, it's absurd for Rule to use Diane's account as conclusive evidence on her early life. Rule doesn't acknowledge that Diane could be manipulating her, but instead uses Diane's prison letters to up the word count in her book. If Diane is as hungry for attention as Rule says she is, doesn't it follow that Diane would happily use a writer to get even more attention? It's true that Rule is a former police woman, not a journalist, but this huge blindspot really turned me off.
There were also a lot of little things here that irked me. Diane lived most of her life in Arizona, so of course Rule describes Arizona and the Phoenix metro area endlessly. As an Arizona resident, I cringed every time Rule described the cacti, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and the heat. Which was hundreds of times. I think she was trying to make Arizona seem like an exotic locale, but it just didn't work, especially since so much of it was just wrong. In one scene, Rule mentions that it's 115 at 7 AM in May. There is just no way it was that hot. It gets to be 115 during the heat of the day in July, not during the mornings in May, when it would be cool and breezy. In another scene, Rule describes the climate: "the pH factor of the desert - acid - had eroded the copper and eaten even into the signature lands and grooves..." This is just false. The Sonoran desert is alkaline, the opposite of acidic. Maybe it's a mistake, but even so, a mistake like that just makes me wonder what else Rule got sloppy on.
Everyone says that this is Rule's best book after The Stranger Beside Me. If that's the case, I won't be reading any more Ann Rule. There are so many excellent true crime books out there that are meticulously researched and engagingly written, and this is just not one of them.
I've been in the mood for true crime lately, and I was inspired to pick up Small Sacrifices by my fond memories of Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, which I read in high school. I remember really enjoying that book, but after finishing this one I'm doubting my memories. I am SO disappointed with Small Sacrifices.
For the life of me, I don't understand what Rule saw in Diane Downs that made her want to write a five-hundred-page book about her. Diane shot her three young children, killing one and severely injuring the other two, and the story ends there. Nothing about Diane or her life is interesting enough to fill five hundred pages. About one hundred of those pages is spent on Diane's trial, and it reads like a courtroom transcript. Rule's writing adds nothing to the text, but instead the reader must slog through pages and pages of dialogue, which is boring. This whole book is boring, and I'm angry that I spent so much time reading it. If you want to read about this case, check out the Wikipedia page, but please don't repeat my mistake.
This book makes it very clear that Ann Rule is not a journalist. She tries very hard to be objective in her writing, but any objectivity is at odds with Rule's storytelling. She wants to tell you a story, but the story is often one-sided. This was most apparent in Rule's handling of Diane's childhood. Rule briefly mentions that she corresponded with Diane when she was in prison, and she quotes extensively from these letters. The result is that we only get to hear about Diane's early life in Diane's own voice: pages and pages about poor, poor Diane the victim. And it really seems like Rule didn't do any fact-checking. For example, Diane tells Rule about an incident where her father was abusing her while driving around in their car, and they got pulled over by the police. Diane describes in detail what happened at that traffic stop, and Rule briefly mentions that this story couldn't be corroborated by the officer's report. What? One of the themes in this book is that Diane is highly manipulative: she manipulated virtually everyone in her life, especially her boyfriends. She wrote countless letters and diary entries, which Rule warned us should be taken with a grain of salt: Diane used these writings to manipulate. Having established that, it's absurd for Rule to use Diane's account as conclusive evidence on her early life. Rule doesn't acknowledge that Diane could be manipulating her, but instead uses Diane's prison letters to up the word count in her book. If Diane is as hungry for attention as Rule says she is, doesn't it follow that Diane would happily use a writer to get even more attention? It's true that Rule is a former police woman, not a journalist, but this huge blindspot really turned me off.
There were also a lot of little things here that irked me. Diane lived most of her life in Arizona, so of course Rule describes Arizona and the Phoenix metro area endlessly. As an Arizona resident, I cringed every time Rule described the cacti, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and the heat. Which was hundreds of times. I think she was trying to make Arizona seem like an exotic locale, but it just didn't work, especially since so much of it was just wrong. In one scene, Rule mentions that it's 115 at 7 AM in May. There is just no way it was that hot. It gets to be 115 during the heat of the day in July, not during the mornings in May, when it would be cool and breezy. In another scene, Rule describes the climate: "the pH factor of the desert - acid - had eroded the copper and eaten even into the signature lands and grooves..." This is just false. The Sonoran desert is alkaline, the opposite of acidic. Maybe it's a mistake, but even so, a mistake like that just makes me wonder what else Rule got sloppy on.
Everyone says that this is Rule's best book after The Stranger Beside Me. If that's the case, I won't be reading any more Ann Rule. There are so many excellent true crime books out there that are meticulously researched and engagingly written, and this is just not one of them.