Reviews
True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray by James Renner
natalie3's review
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Car accident, Death, Addiction, and Murder
Moderate: Eating disorder, Rape, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Mental illness, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Abortion, Addiction, Incest, and Sexual violence
Minor: Stalking, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Cancer, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, and Suicide
alisarae's review against another edition
DNF at 20%: the author constantly does things that he thinks makes him sound cool and makes everyone else think he’s a douchebag. I started to get the feeling that this book is more about his own life than about a possible crime, and also that he would not solve the case by the end of the book. After reading other reviews, I decided to not finish this book because my suspicions were correct. Read some of the 1-starred reviews to get a sense of this nonsense.
chickiebean_loves_books's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.0
Five things about True Crime Addict by James Renner 📚📚📚
1. This is really well written. Highly readable. His intentions are good. He’s trying his absolute best.
2. It’s equal parts memoir and true crime investigation.
3. Renner comes to some pretty far flung conclusions that he doesn’t really provide solid support for.
4. He also makes some serious and unfounded insinuations.
5. Bottom line is Renner is very emotionally close to this unsolved case and he’s desperate for answers. In many ways, out of all good intentions, he’s connecting dots that do not actually connect.
1. This is really well written. Highly readable. His intentions are good. He’s trying his absolute best.
2. It’s equal parts memoir and true crime investigation.
3. Renner comes to some pretty far flung conclusions that he doesn’t really provide solid support for.
4. He also makes some serious and unfounded insinuations.
5. Bottom line is Renner is very emotionally close to this unsolved case and he’s desperate for answers. In many ways, out of all good intentions, he’s connecting dots that do not actually connect.
trudilibrarian's review
4.0
I came to know author James Renner through his wacky, engrossing, bewitchingly unique novels - [b:The Man from Primrose Lane|12476620|The Man from Primrose Lane|James Renner|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1431521815s/12476620.jpg|17460972] and [b:The Great Forgetting|23847931|The Great Forgetting|James Renner|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1428639037s/23847931.jpg|43457961]. And while he has a noteworthy talent spinning wild and crazy tales of speculative fiction, Renner is also a dedicated true crime writer. In fact, the journalism and true crime writing came first. And now he's returned to these stomping grounds in a big way with his new release True Crime Addict.
What sets this true crime book apart from most is not only the exceptionally sharp, punchy, lucid writing, but that Renner very much writes himself into the story as an observer, participant and one could even argue collateral damage to the unsolved Maura Murray missing person case. We realize almost from the opening paragraphs, that this is going to be a very personal journey for Renner, where he not only loses himself down the addicting, obsessive rabbit hole of trying to solve the mystery of a young woman's inexplicable disappearance into seemingly thin air, he also lays bare his own personal demons, that include his young son's struggle with uncontrollable violent outbursts (and quite possibly prescient abilities). This book really is one man's unflinching look into the abyss, and what stares back at him.
Renner is not the only person to have fallen down the rabbit hole of the Maura Murray case (a quick Google search will prove that), but given his personality and dark obsessive tendencies that he comes by quite honestly, Renner is arguably the one who's fallen the hardest and most completely. The publication of this book is the culmination (and hopefully for him) an emotional catharsis of a very long journey that Renner has recorded in detail on his Maura Murray blog that he launched in June 2011.
This book really could not have come at a better time. We seem to be in the midst of a true crime renaissance with recent cultural watershed phenomena like Making a Murderer, The Jinx and the first season of Sarah Koenig's podcast Serial which I became obsessed with when it ran in the fall of 2014. And you might as well throw The People vs OJ on that pile too, because it was also fantastic and drew a huge viewing audience.
I want to thank karen for putting a copy of this book in my hands and it is with great enthusiasm I write this review in the hopes it brings even more much deserved attention to what Renner has accomplished here.
dfmaiwat's review
2.0
The writing is a bit unfocused and I’m not sure that I approve of Renner’s investigative tactics. If you can ignore that, it’s a 3/5. Just go watch Zodiac.
fanchera's review
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
0.5
This was the absolute worst piece of garbage I have ever read. His methods of investigating Maura’s disappearance was by harassing her family and friends. I’m disgusted by how he has treated them. I’m so glad that I bought this used, that my money did not go into his pocket. Don’t waste your time on this one.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Bullying, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Incest, Stalking, Child death, Suicide, Alcoholism, Pedophilia, and Violence
Minor: Terminal illness, Death of parent, Child abuse, Car accident, Sexism, and Rape
mariahroze's review
4.0
"When an eleven-year-old James Renner fell in love with Amy Mihaljevic, the missing girl seen on posters all over his neighborhood, it was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with true crime. That obsession led Renner to a successful career as an investigative journalist. It also gave him post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2011, Renner began researching the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a University of Massachusetts student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004. Over the course of his investigation, he uncovered numerous important and shocking new clues about what may have happened to Murray but also found himself in increasingly dangerous situations with little regard for his own well-being. As his quest to find Murray deepened, the case started taking a toll on his personal life, which began to spiral out of control. The result is an absorbing dual investigation of the complicated story of the All-American girl who went missing and Renner's own equally complicated true-crime addiction."
This book was extremely good!
This book was extremely good!
tabandvelcro's review
2.0
This was kind of a snooze & I ended up skimming at the end. The author seems like a creep and either this case is sort of boring or he didn't present it in an interesting way, so I had a hard time keep track of the threads of the case. Also he interjects random tidbits about his real life but it's not nearly enough to seem necessary as it has nothing to do with the story.
southernbellebooks's review
3.0
I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over. It was definitely interesting and I appreciated the author’s deep dive into this case. It was just a little too blah for me when it came to some of the information.