princesszinza's review against another edition
4.0
I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
My initial thoughts as I started this book were about Canadian crime. The murder of one person in the United States would hardly elicit a newspaper article, much less a whole book. As I continued reading I became engrossed with the story of a murdering child who had parents with high expectations.
There is much discussion of Asian culture and the "tiger mom" phenomenon in this book. Being from a predominately Asian community, I'm aware of Asian culture. Pan's Chinese/Vietnamese background was an interesting part of the story but I felt that it was probably laid on a bit heavy. Much of this information was repeated again and again in the book.
I agree with the author that Jennifer Pan had some sort of psychological problem. She was a pathological liar. I didn't understand how a seemingly intelligent person would not even graduate high school. Like liars everywhere, her tales made her life worse not better.
My initial thoughts as I started this book were about Canadian crime. The murder of one person in the United States would hardly elicit a newspaper article, much less a whole book. As I continued reading I became engrossed with the story of a murdering child who had parents with high expectations.
There is much discussion of Asian culture and the "tiger mom" phenomenon in this book. Being from a predominately Asian community, I'm aware of Asian culture. Pan's Chinese/Vietnamese background was an interesting part of the story but I felt that it was probably laid on a bit heavy. Much of this information was repeated again and again in the book.
I agree with the author that Jennifer Pan had some sort of psychological problem. She was a pathological liar. I didn't understand how a seemingly intelligent person would not even graduate high school. Like liars everywhere, her tales made her life worse not better.
kayleigh_reads_romance's review against another edition
Interesting story. Lousy writing.
merlin_reads's review
3.0
What a disturbing story.
On November 8, 2010, 3 men shot both of Jennifer Pan's parents in their basement, killing her mother and seriously injuring her father. The intruders left Jennifer tied to the railing upstairs where, after they left, she was able to finagle her phone out of her pockets and call the police. What the detectives uncover while searching for the suspects is a deception so deep it's chilling - a murder hit set up by Jennifer Pan herself.
I find true crime absolutely fascinating. Books, movies, TV shows - I'm all over them. I've always been interested in the criminal justice system and the psychology behind the crimes. So when I saw this book on Netgally, I immediately requested it.
Grimaldi sets the scene right away and follows it all the way through to the sentencing, even including a 'Where Are They Now?' section. As I read more about Jennifer and the life she led with her parents, I still couldn't fathom how one person could plot to kill their own parents. There was no abuse shown in the house, just a strict Asian upbringing that Jennifer was unable to live up to. Instead of telling her parents about her failures, she hid them. She forged report cards, diplomas, acceptance letters to college, all of it. While her parents thought she was at school, she was sneaking off to be with her boyfriend. But the lies came to be too much and her father caught her, forcing her to choose to live with her boyfriend and never come back or come back to the family home. She chose the later and lived in a very controlled environment. This isolation and separation from her boyfriend is what led to her planning her parents death.
It was interesting to read how the Crown (the crime took place in Canada) pieced together the story of what happened. There was no DNA evidence, the weapons were never recovered, but they managed to link Jennifer, her boyfriend, and three others together using cell phone tracking and data. These parts were a little hard to follow as there were multiple people in play with multiple phones a piece most using multiple aliases. I felt like I could have used a flow chart to simplify it at times or something to help me keep track.
The book was extremely repetitive. Repeating the same information over and over again but in different chapters and using different variations to make it seem new almost. I skimmed most of what happened after trail parts because it was mostly just information we already knew. Another issue I had was multiple words were missing letters making it hard to read. I don't blame this on the author, though. This was from the publisher who used the wrong format for the type of ARC they sent out.
Overall, if you like true crime, give this one a shot.
I received an e-copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
On November 8, 2010, 3 men shot both of Jennifer Pan's parents in their basement, killing her mother and seriously injuring her father. The intruders left Jennifer tied to the railing upstairs where, after they left, she was able to finagle her phone out of her pockets and call the police. What the detectives uncover while searching for the suspects is a deception so deep it's chilling - a murder hit set up by Jennifer Pan herself.
I find true crime absolutely fascinating. Books, movies, TV shows - I'm all over them. I've always been interested in the criminal justice system and the psychology behind the crimes. So when I saw this book on Netgally, I immediately requested it.
Grimaldi sets the scene right away and follows it all the way through to the sentencing, even including a 'Where Are They Now?' section. As I read more about Jennifer and the life she led with her parents, I still couldn't fathom how one person could plot to kill their own parents. There was no abuse shown in the house, just a strict Asian upbringing that Jennifer was unable to live up to. Instead of telling her parents about her failures, she hid them. She forged report cards, diplomas, acceptance letters to college, all of it. While her parents thought she was at school, she was sneaking off to be with her boyfriend. But the lies came to be too much and her father caught her, forcing her to choose to live with her boyfriend and never come back or come back to the family home. She chose the later and lived in a very controlled environment. This isolation and separation from her boyfriend is what led to her planning her parents death.
It was interesting to read how the Crown (the crime took place in Canada) pieced together the story of what happened. There was no DNA evidence, the weapons were never recovered, but they managed to link Jennifer, her boyfriend, and three others together using cell phone tracking and data. These parts were a little hard to follow as there were multiple people in play with multiple phones a piece most using multiple aliases. I felt like I could have used a flow chart to simplify it at times or something to help me keep track.
The book was extremely repetitive. Repeating the same information over and over again but in different chapters and using different variations to make it seem new almost. I skimmed most of what happened after trail parts because it was mostly just information we already knew. Another issue I had was multiple words were missing letters making it hard to read. I don't blame this on the author, though. This was from the publisher who used the wrong format for the type of ARC they sent out.
Overall, if you like true crime, give this one a shot.
I received an e-copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
lmau's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
trulybooked's review against another edition
2.0
The book is very detailed, but the writing feels basic. It's not bad, not by any means, but there are so many amazing True Crime books out there and I guess I wanted more than just the facts. Grimaldi seems to try to be as objective as possible, but there's obviously some bias there that shines through.
The later chapters dragged in a very big way for me, but if you want to know about the Jennifer Pan case? There's no resource I've found that's quite as thorough as this book is and it's definitely worth the read.
The later chapters dragged in a very big way for me, but if you want to know about the Jennifer Pan case? There's no resource I've found that's quite as thorough as this book is and it's definitely worth the read.
spidergirl502's review against another edition
5.0
I read a good bit of the "true crime" genre, and this was one of the best I've read. It goes into a lot of background and psychology and goes into detail of how this crime affected those involved.
kristenlem's review against another edition
4.0
A really chilling and well told story from as many angles as was available to the author. Be sure to read the afterword that discusses possible psychological motivations and analysis.