Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod by Casey Sherman

5 reviews

idkimoutofideas's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

jessies's review

challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

3.0

Before the infamous Manson killings, a killer terrorized Provincetown, murdering and butchering young women.  This book goes deep into serial killer Tony Costa and intersperses the literary battle between Normal Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut, local authors who were both writing about the murders.  I enjoyed the back and forth between topics, it made the book move faster.  

While the hunt for Costa and the resulting trial are detailed, most of the book is about Costa himself.  While the author is respectful of the victims and their families, I found the depictions of the brutal murders from Costa's perspective gratuitous.  This book is written much like an Erik Larson book, in which it is a "fiction" non-fiction book.  I took the dramatized parts with a grain of salt. 

The author narrates this book and he did a great job. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Sexual assault, and Murder

hhanock's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Blood, and Murder

avidreaderandgeekgirl's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

2.5

 I don't think authors should narrate their own books most of the time, but this author did okay. However, the book was at least 5 hrs too long with all the Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonget stuff. Also, the gruesome narrator of the crimes was graphically described WAY too many times, it was just over and over again. I did appreciate the amount of research the author put into the book, but I probably wouldn't recommend this book. It's simply just too long!  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide

reading_under_covers's review against another edition

2.0

HELLTOWN by Casey Sherman tells the story of serial killer Tony Costa as he rampaged across Cape Cod in the late 60’s.

This book is being marketed as nonfiction and true crime, yet, in the author’s note, Sherman concludes that he took fictional liberties in the telling of this story…Imagine reading an entire (wild & lengthy) book to then hit that statement…

HELLTOWN also jumped around from one person to another (seemingly unrelated) person and their story, and it just became convoluted and unnecessary, with the pieces barely clicking together by the end.

This one was a slog to get through, and I’m not even sure who I’d recommend it to by the end of it (there are also better books already written on Tony Costa if you want an actual nonfiction recounting).

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review - unfortunately, it ended up not being the book for me.

Publication Date: July 12, 2022

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Drug use, and Murder