amelia555's review against another edition
4.0
This book was in a way ahead of its time because people really got into true crime in the past few years. And "The Devil..." is part true crime, part non-fiction race against the clock story, which makes it fun to read. You wonder if they are able to finish building the fair in time! Even though the fair ended over a century ago, and you know they did. Both parts are detailed enough to seem well-researched, but not too detailed to venture into the niche territory. I don't think I want to know more about either story, what's offered is just enough.
Numerous famous names are mentioned, turns out that fair really was a big deal for many. Disney, Dreiser etc. Was the White City really the proto-Disneyland? This assumption doesn't seem far-fetched. As for names and events in another storyline, about H.H. Holmes, I'll trust the author and think he did as good of a job researching it as he could at the time.
Many say the story of a serial killer and the construction of a fair doesn't really go together and don't have much in common except for time and place — well, it's true. But it seems pretty wild that these two plots were unfolding at the same time, and the juxtaposition of them is good enough reason to out them in the same book, I'd say? Why not. I was not offended by it.
Numerous famous names are mentioned, turns out that fair really was a big deal for many. Disney, Dreiser etc. Was the White City really the proto-Disneyland? This assumption doesn't seem far-fetched. As for names and events in another storyline, about H.H. Holmes, I'll trust the author and think he did as good of a job researching it as he could at the time.
Many say the story of a serial killer and the construction of a fair doesn't really go together and don't have much in common except for time and place — well, it's true. But it seems pretty wild that these two plots were unfolding at the same time, and the juxtaposition of them is good enough reason to out them in the same book, I'd say? Why not. I was not offended by it.
trinitybaumann's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
djbagwell's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
3.0
lindseygwilson's review against another edition
3.0
Sharon McMahon's book club read it last year but I didn't get to it. My son read it in school this year and recommended it to me. It's my second Erik Larson book, and I feel the same way as I did about Isaac's Storm: there's a lot of interesting information, and then a lot more info that I probably didn't need, several dozen names and story lines I probably didn't need to be introduced to, and so much minutiae. It was work to get through it. He also creates scenes that he doesn't actually have evidence for, like how the killer felt as he was smothering the victim, the words he said to her, etc.
I felt it was work to go back and forth between the World Fair, and the Serial Killer story. I would have liked a book of one, or the other, or two books (one of each). I felt I wasn't fully able to appreciate or get into either story because the other one was a distraction.
Still glad I read it. There was a lot of neat info about the Columbian World Fair and how it influenced many realms in the 20th century.
I felt it was work to go back and forth between the World Fair, and the Serial Killer story. I would have liked a book of one, or the other, or two books (one of each). I felt I wasn't fully able to appreciate or get into either story because the other one was a distraction.
Still glad I read it. There was a lot of neat info about the Columbian World Fair and how it influenced many realms in the 20th century.
iamericat22's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
3.5
lexigoyette's review against another edition
3.0
I liked this book more in theory than in reality. I felt like I was reading a history textbook - an interesting one, though! - so it took me a while to get through this. It's very dense, not something I wanted to pick up after my nine-hour work day. I've been in a bit of a reading slump the past few weeks, but now that I'm finished with this one, I'm excited to move on to something more fast-paced.
hannahrose_99's review against another edition
3.0
I found this book really interesting and felt like I learned a lot about the history of Chicago, which was cool. I do wish it had been more focused on the H.H. Holmes storyline; I found the architecture stuff interesting but a little boring. Loved that there were so many mentions of Graceland cemetery in Chicago, which is a place that I spent three hours in by myself this fall and fell in love with. Also loved the small mentions of little towns I know in Illinois and Iowa. Glad I finally read it though!