Reviews tagging 'Abortion'

The Confessions of an American Black Widow: A True Story of Greed, Lust and a Murderous Wife by Gregg Olsen

2 reviews

astoriareader's review

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dark slow-paced

2.0

SYNOPSIS:
  • Sharon was raised in very religious family. Her parents pressure into a marriage at a young age that she’s not interested in from day one.
  • Sharon marries a few different men, and two of her husbands die. Sharon and an accomplice confessed to the crimes, and the book is about her & her husbands.

MY THOUGHTS
  • The author spends quite a bit of time slut-shaming. He focuses on how Sharon dresses, who Sharon sleeps with, how Sharon moves, how Sharon’s body looked, etc. At the same time, the author depicts her male lovers as victims, despite willingly sleeping with Sharon & enjoying sex with Sharon. Super misogynistic. For this reason, 
  • Likewise, the author even describes Sharon’s male accomplice as a great guy under Sharon’s spell.
  • Obviously, no one should have died, but the author doesn’t offer any insights into the crime. It’s almost laughable. Every character is written in a good light, except Sharon. She feels cartoonish. 
  • I am not convinced this was a story that needed to be told, at least not by this author.
  • I would have been more interested in a story about Sharon’s accomplice, Gary. Gary wouldn’t even leave his wife for Sharon, and he was the one who got his hands dirty. He is the more psychologically interesting human to analyze.
  • I don’t care about Sharon’s sex life. Even if she slept with 1,000 men, who cares? That doesn’t impact if she’s a good or bad person. Also, given her extremely religious upbringing, her sex life is the most understandable thing about her. 
  • The title?! When I was approved by Netgalley to read this, it was titled Confessions of an American Black Widow. But, I did some googling & apparently, it was previously titled: “Bitch on Wheels” — what?!?!
  • I wasn’t a fan of the formatting/structure of the book. It jumps around a lot, and doesn’t flow well.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️Very misogynistic writing.

Thanks to Threads Books and Netgalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

4.0

The book was interesting and kept me engaged. The time on the audiobook went by fast. The narrator was excellent. I think that the language has changed a lot since these events occurred and when the book was first released and may be offensive to some listeners. 
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