Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

91 reviews

meagan123's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Racism, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and Classism

j0guelas's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Patrick Wolfe was right when he said settler colonialism is a structure not an event.

I picked up the book straight after watching the movie and I can definitely say I enjoy the book more, which is not a slight to Martin Scorsese. My reading experience was greatly influenced by the movie as well - making comparison to how the story and its characters were portrayed.

David Grann is a true journalist. He wastes no time in telling the truth and laying bare how sinister white society can be in a style that is so beautiful.

While it’s true the shift to the FBI does not compare to Mollie Burkhart’s story, I was quite captured by Tom White. Though Mollie, like the film, no doubt is the beating heart of this story, White’s story was enrapturing. Following White’s story from his youth to his days as a cowboy lawman to when he becomes the FBI’s crowning jewel before slowly being lost to time was poetic.

And much like the film, I have a lot of complex feeling about this book that I struggle to articulate. Every time I come up with a thought about this book, I find myself countering it. Was I acutely aware that the person telling this story is a non-Osage person? Yes. But I was also acutely aware that I am not an Osage person. What layers of this truth is Grann missing? What am I missing?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Murder, and Colonisation

omair's review against another edition

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.0

WARNING TO THOSE READING THIS BECAUSE OF THE FILM ADAPTATION:
After all of the hype and excitement I had for the film adaptation, I knew I had to read the source material as soon as possible. I had thought I would take to the book far more than the film, which I did thoroughly like, because I went into the film expecting more police procedural and less story of love

and betrayal

.

Yet as I read this book, I found myself agreeing more and more with the decisions the film made. This is not a slight against the book, but further praise for the film. The purposes of the film and the book are not one and the same, and so it is vital to anyone that, like me, is coming to read because/after the film to understand before they begin.

REVIEW THE BOOK INDEPENDENT OF THE FILM (which is what I intend to do)

Killers is as informative of a book as I could've imagined considering the personal story the primary focus is on. The book is overflowing with descriptors that will make you feel sorrow and anger, leave you wondering what humanity is and why it is missing. While only covering a handful of incidences, the cold factual presentation will leave you reeling, as if sensing how small a fraction the sample is compared to the population. All totaled, the official death count may

only be a couple dozen

but Grann will easily convince you that there were hundreds more victims during the Reign of Terror, and he may well be right.

If you can make it through the pain and sadness, there is a beautiful story here of a people's survival. The heart to endure and rally is as much a light as the era is an inky darkness. The book may focus on Thomas White, his team of agents, and their investigation that finally tore down the veil behind which the atrocities hid, but the real heroes are the Osage people.

For as strong as the book is in its cold, clearly well-researched, tone, I also found this to be a slight undoing. The voice can feel rather impersonal at times, leaving the reader as a student of history rather than immersed in the moment. This is why I agree with the decisions made for the film adaptation. Maybe I would feel differently not having known the details from the film first, I can never know for sure. But the progression of the book, and some of the detours along the way, played loose with risking a reader to set the book down only to never return and finish.

Ultimately, I will recommend this read to anyone with an interest in the Reign of Terror, interest in the era, an interest in the realities of White American Exceptionalism, or a morbid curiosity of a casual genocide. Sticking through some of the uneven pacing is well worth it for the resulting reverence of the Osage, and Mollie in particular, all carrying inside of them something no man could ever kill.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, Violence, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Chronic illness, Confinement, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Medical content, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, and Gaslighting

ghesscaple's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, and Gaslighting

dhelwagen's review

dark informative sad medium-paced

5.0

First nonfiction book that I’ve read in a while and what a good choice to get  back into the genre. Absolutely heartbreaking story that really makes you think about the history of the US and the dark sides of expansion. The writing and research are well thought out and organized but don’t feel like you’re reading a textbook. You come to know the characters as if they are still alive and grieve for/with them as they pass. Would recommend for anyone trying to get back in to nonfiction or, really, anyone wanting to read a good book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Genocide, Racism, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Gun violence

radair's review against another edition

informative mysterious medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Genocide

otakatoe3's review against another edition

emotional informative sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

nrogers_1030's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense

5.0

It's one of those books you don't want to read because you know it's sad, but you know you need to. The injustice that the Osage people suffered is unimaginable. This book shines a light on Oklahoma's dark past.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Violence, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

twistykris's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Grief, Murder, Colonisation, and Classism

Moderate: Child death, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

blaketisdebest's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

Truly one of the best books I’ve ever read. Chronicles the grotesque history of abuse and extortion of the indigenous in the americas as a legacy that continues today. The author approaches the nonfiction tale as a narrative beyond reality by how shocking and inane the story of the Osage truly is.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail