A review by stellahadz
Penance by Eliza Clark

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I loved how this book was written - it's a novel presented as a non-fiction true-crime book. Clark captures the voices of the teen characters so well, and as someone who grew up using Tumblr (and who was thankfully spared the genuinely horrifying sides of that platform), it was so interesting to see it explored in literature. I also loved that the characters and the setting were so well thought out; everything was described with a perfect amount of detail that tied it back to the crime. I genuinely liked this book a lot, perhaps more than Boy Parts, but there was something about it that bothered me.

As someone who has admittedly listened to and watched true-crime stories (although I try not to engage with media that is sensationalizing or disrespectful of victims and their families), I noticed almost immediately that
Joan's murder and its aftermath was practically a play-by-play of the murder of Shanda Sharer, a girl who was tortured and killed by a group of older teenagers in (I believe) the 90s. I can't help but feel that it's a little disturbing and disrespectful for the book to be *this* closely based on an actual crime against a child. There was no mention of Sharer or her family anywhere in the book notes or the acknowledgments (although I'm not familiar with all of the books that Clark referenced in writing this book.)
Maybe Clark's intention is to engage the audience through a sense of familiarity with especially famous true crime cases. While this is clever and well-executed from a writing point of view, I'm not sure how ethical it is. Again, I did like the book overall, this is just something that bugged me about it. 
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