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theliteraryhooker 's review for:
True Crime
by Samantha Kolesnik
This was really a case of "it's not you, it's me." I liked this book, but I didn't love it the way most people I've spoken to have. I think this book may be the one that seals it for me: if the fantastic, brutal writing here can't bring me around on really enjoying serial killer horror, nothing can.
Kolesnik's writing is deft and I found myself having to take breaks between chapters because I needed a breather from the horrors depicted. Especially in the first half of the book, the brutality the author manages to get onto the page in such a cold, detached way is extremely unsettling. This book definitely had me squirming at the actions committed by and against Suzy. However, the story lost me a little in the back half. The time jump was a bit jarring, and I found there wasn't much for me to connect with. Again the writing is fantastic and I cannot fault the author at all there; it's clear that the reader is meant to be held at arm's length from Suzy, the same way she holds the rest of the world. But that intentional distance made it hard for me to connect with the story as it went on.
There were also a couple of repeated elements that took me out of the horror of the plot. They didn't really lead anywhere but as the book went on, they jumped out at me more and more and created a bit of a distraction.
I do think that anyone who is a fan of true crime as a genre, or anything serial killer related, will absolutely love this book. It's extremely well done and, while I didn't connect with Suzy as much as I would have liked and wanted more details on Lim, I did find them to be believable characters. I just wasn't quite the right reader for this novel.
Kolesnik's writing is deft and I found myself having to take breaks between chapters because I needed a breather from the horrors depicted. Especially in the first half of the book, the brutality the author manages to get onto the page in such a cold, detached way is extremely unsettling. This book definitely had me squirming at the actions committed by and against Suzy. However, the story lost me a little in the back half. The time jump was a bit jarring, and I found there wasn't much for me to connect with. Again the writing is fantastic and I cannot fault the author at all there; it's clear that the reader is meant to be held at arm's length from Suzy, the same way she holds the rest of the world. But that intentional distance made it hard for me to connect with the story as it went on.
There were also a couple of repeated elements that took me out of the horror of the plot. They didn't really lead anywhere but as the book went on, they jumped out at me more and more and created a bit of a distraction.
I do think that anyone who is a fan of true crime as a genre, or anything serial killer related, will absolutely love this book. It's extremely well done and, while I didn't connect with Suzy as much as I would have liked and wanted more details on Lim, I did find them to be believable characters. I just wasn't quite the right reader for this novel.