Reviews tagging 'Death'

True Crime Story, by Joseph Knox

10 reviews

lesemaresi's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Loved it. Loved the concept of the book and how it was written/ how the author incorporated himself into the book. Felt like a true crime documentary. I was an Easy and fast read. I couldn’t stop ready because there were So many turns of event but that also made it  a bit exhausting/confusing and hard to keep up with everything.

Spoiler

Unsure about the conclusion/ending… and how reliable the author really is

Spoiler

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Sexual content, Mental illness, Infidelity, Grief, Trafficking, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Drug use, Drug abuse, Torture, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, Murder, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Alcoholism, Adult/minor relationship, Addiction, Abandonment, and Violence

fairylightreads's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Spoiler

As someone whose halls flat walls were made of one long crawlspace I'm very glad I didn't read it until 6 years after I moved out of halls

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Death, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Suicide attempt, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Addiction, Toxic friendship, Stalking, Sexual violence, and Murder

Moderate: Self harm and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Terminal illness, Death of parent, Racial slurs, Eating disorder, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

sarahmae531's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I couldn’t put this book down! Between conflicting recounts and juicy teenage drama, I kept coming back for more.
The ending was set up perfectly. I was so sure I knew what was going to happen because it all seemed so obvious, but then I was proven SO wrong. The true ending was also well explained and you weren’t left wondering “how does that all add up??”
The book also did an amazing job of not breaking the fourth wall. Editor, publisher, and author notes included in the book are all fiction. There is a character in the book that’s shares the name and title of a debut novel as the author. Emails, photos, and even a Facebook post are included. It was very impressive. 

I will say, check content warnings before reading, this has almost every traumatizing thing you can think of. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Drug abuse, Death, Violence, Self harm, Stalking, Kidnapping, Murder, Mental illness, Infidelity, Grief, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Addiction, and Blood

Moderate: Pregnancy, Cancer, Terminal illness, Trafficking, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Sexual harassment

rachelizx's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Drug use, Addiction, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Self harm, Murder, Death, Stalking, Physical abuse, and Grief

milliep's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Spoiler

I really enjoyed this book! I think some parts werent necessarily believable, but I enjoyed the novelty of its format and the twists and turns. Great idea and well executed - did find it strange that there was no disclaimer saying the story wasnt actually true though haha

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction and Death

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Minor: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Chronic illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Vomit

amichreads's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Self harm, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

stephsbooktalk's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

3.0

Audiobook: Thank you to Libro.fm for a copy of this audiobook!  I had kept seeing reviews for this book and was instantly intrigued. I am not usually a fan of true crime and even attempted previously a true crime audiobook and failed. 

I love the idea of this and it sounded what I imagine a true crime podcast would sound like. I like that there were different narrators for the different people involved. I had to keep remembering that this was a work of fiction even if it all sounded more non fiction. 

My only issue is I needed some kind of cheat sheet with a name and who they were. I did think it went a little long and by the end I was like what?

I’d be interested to see the physical copy of the book to see the emails and transcripts. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death

novabooks's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Murder, Self harm, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Violence

soobooksalot's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

True Crime Story is written in the style it's title implies.
Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebook/Landmark for the eARC for review.
Author Joseph Knox creates a world resembling real life, with fictional author Evelyn Mitchell taking on the case of missing college co-ed Zoe Nolan. Evelyn's information-gathering is supplemented by Joseph's investigation notes, turning the author into a character. Editor and author notes, character photos and redacted correspondence are included throughout. 
The story is presented as statements from acquaintances and family members of Zoe, as part of the investigation of her whereabouts.
The writing is solid and the format engaging. I did find the story became unfocused and ran long at times, but overall an interesting premise on the traditional missing person story. 
Recommended for something different!
Released on Dec. 7.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Death, Kidnapping, Murder, and Sexual content

honeyreads1066's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book had me googling whether it, not this was a true story. 

This book follows the disappearance of a Manchester University student Zoe and the events after and surrounding this. The key players in this disappearance are revealed at the beginning, including her twin sister Kimberly. Told through a series of interviews that are cut together after the fact, you get a picture of Zoe's life and the complicated people surrounding her. 

The strongest part of this book was probably the style, it was the thing that drew me to it in the first place. The book is told through a series of interviews that are cut together as well as emails between the author and the original author. The style was unique and did keep things interesting. 

Despite this, I did have an issue with the pacing, while there were massive reveals and things that didn't make sense, I felt like at times these large things were brushed to the side in favour of snide comments other none interesting information. It made me want to put the book down quite a few times but I stuck through to see how it would end. 

The characters themselves started off feeling a little bit like caricatures, there were also a few things said at the beginning regarding race that was a bit iffy and didn't come up later. It did make me want to stop. 

You understand at the beginning that everyone has their personal version of events and thus everyone seems to be an unreliable narrator which I think was a massive pro for the story. 

The ending left a lot of questions which would be fair if it were a true story but since this is fiction it made me pretty frustrated. There are a few elements that seem to have been completely dropped but then why bring these things up if they're going to be dropped. 

Overall, despite what it may seem at times I was drawn into the story. I wasn't expecting the ending but I'm unsure about how I feel about it at the current time. This was solid especially love the style it was written in. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Kidnapping, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Suicide, Rape, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Trafficking