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kendal_'s review against another edition
2.5
The book is fine. It's not exceptional or horrid. It is NOT the book it's marketed as. It's mostly personal anecdotes about the author and doesn't make any new or profound statements on women and how they are portrayed in all media.
kirbie's review against another edition
3.0
Not what it’s marketed as, nor what it sets out to be, but a good book to work through languidly. Worth it for the last essay in the collection alone, “Accomplices,” where Bolin turns a critical eye to the problematic privilege of the white female memoirist.
victorialb's review against another edition
5.0
This books starts out by examining the dead girl trope in true crime and fiction, and then winds its way through essays on mental illness, witchcraft, LA's freeways and reality tv. The feminist analysis in the earlier essays is familiar and comforting (teenage girls develop interests in witchcraft and eating disorders to exert control in a hostile world!) But the last essay, which examines how white feminism and the construction of white girl/womanhood perpetuates the dead girl trope (amongst other social and political ills) was my favorite.
lncastle's review against another edition
4.0
This is largely not a book about dead girls. But I mean, did I enjoy it? Yeah mostly! Bolin is hella good at writing. The parts I most enjoyed were those where she drew on her own personal experiences. Overall a good collection of personal essays (rather than an analysis of dead girls as the title suggests).
jennc's review
2.0
This should not be marketed as true crime. It's barely mentioned. The book was way too meandering and I couldn't wait to finish it. I enjoyed some bits but not enough to enjoy the overall experience.
apcrum's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
2.0
This book is frustrating because there are a smattering of interesting topics, but they rarely relate back to the concept of “dead women” and devolve into the author’s personal andecdotes that don’t really add to the conversation. The writing style/approach is reminiscent of Amanda Montell.
tscott907's review against another edition
3.0
Listened after really enjoying Bolin’s work in a true crime anthology I read earlier this year. Unfortunately found this book mostly meandering and unfocused, about the author’s life rather than the thesis. It was fine but I was disappointed.
kathydubs10's review against another edition
3.0
I have so many mixed thoughts on this one. I picked it up, because as Bolin so accurately calls out in the first portion of this book - our culture is obsessed with dead girls and true crime. I have to say I really enjoyed maybe the first third of this book, because that is exactly what the essays were about. I thought Bolin described our fascination with dead girls and how they are portrayed in the media and what that means big picture very well. It had me thinking about a lot of things (and as a psychologist I need more of that in my life). Things started to get a little rocky for me when she entered the realm of trying to integrate mental health discussions into her essays. While in some they were appropriate, in others it just seemed like a stretch to me. In one essay, she talks about the DSM, a manual used by those in mental health fields for diagnosis. While I was glad she mentioned it, the way she used it to make her case made me feel slightly offended, as Bolin speaks about how the DSM tends to box people in to a diagnosis. As someone who uses the DSM every work day, I know that it's really much more than that and I don't see how I could do my job properly without it, so that was a sore spot for me. About 2/3rds of the text is not about the topic at hand, which is also where a lot of it fell through for me. Although well written, I did not pick up this book to read about her experiences in LA and NYC. I still enjoyed the essays because they were well written, but after a while it felt a little deja-vu to read about how a book or movie sparked the idea for another essay.