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autumndynasty's review against another edition
2.0
An easy read. Would have been enjoyable but for the overbearing self-aggrandizment of the author and many, many typos. As it is, I needed a brain-cleanser between bigger books and this did a good job. It would have made a good holiday read.
janbo's review against another edition
4.0
A good book by a terrible author.
The fascinating topic and premise do all the heavy lifting here. The insight into the minds of "Psychopaths and Savages" was worth suffering through Berry-Dee's prattling.
One of the abnormal minds one gets to explore is that of the author himself. I suspect CBD (that's what he calls himself) to be even more of a narcissist than most of the criminals he talked to. He plugs his own books every chance he gets, he brags incessantly about how he manipulated these master-manipulators into giving him information, he boasts about all the important people he knows as well as murderabilia he collected, he gets resentful whenever someone disagrees with him and he really holds a grudge against police who ignored his advice.
Additionally when he finds a phrase he likes, he repeats it until it is impossible not to be annoyed by it.
Shortly after lamenting "the word count allocated to me in this book" (one of the phrases CBD loves dearly) he just copies and pastes entire sections of court documents.
The fascinating topic and premise do all the heavy lifting here. The insight into the minds of "Psychopaths and Savages" was worth suffering through Berry-Dee's prattling.
One of the abnormal minds one gets to explore is that of the author himself. I suspect CBD (that's what he calls himself) to be even more of a narcissist than most of the criminals he talked to. He plugs his own books every chance he gets, he brags incessantly about how he manipulated these master-manipulators into giving him information, he boasts about all the important people he knows as well as murderabilia he collected, he gets resentful whenever someone disagrees with him and he really holds a grudge against police who ignored his advice.
Additionally when he finds a phrase he likes, he repeats it until it is impossible not to be annoyed by it.
Shortly after lamenting "the word count allocated to me in this book" (one of the phrases CBD loves dearly) he just copies and pastes entire sections of court documents.
bethany_reads2003's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
2.25
gemgem44's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Blood, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
bexlrose's review against another edition
This book is really really interesting. So much so that after finishing it just immediately picked up the previous book by Berry-Dee on the same subject. HOWEVER the author is really up his own arse! It's so bloody annoying. He's always putting down psychologists and saying how great he is because he doesn't just study psychopaths, he actually goes and meets them. It's full of asides of how excellently he handled difficult situations and how unintimidated he is by these killers even though they could kill him in a second because he had their handcuffs removed because he is so brave and clever.
Really annoying tone of what is essentially an incredibly interesting book. So I'm not going to rate it because I don't want to massage the author's ego.
Really annoying tone of what is essentially an incredibly interesting book. So I'm not going to rate it because I don't want to massage the author's ego.
taylorc19's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.25
I completely understand a lot of the criticism that this book faces. The author often comes off as conceited, arrogant, and grandiose-funnily enough, I found myself making comparisons between the author and the psychopaths that he interviewed. He often droned about how his efforts and investigations led to killers making confessions that the police could never obtain. Don't get me wrong, that is something to be proud of, it just gets rather redundant and eye-roll inducing to constantly read about. However, I also think a lot of the criticism of this book is unwarranted. The author never claims that this is going to be an in-depth summary of every killers case. This book is about the psychology of psychopaths and savages and how their minds work, and how the author used his knowledge of psychology to manipulate these barbaric criminals. I found this book interesting because I've studied psychology, but I can understand that if someone who is simply interested in true-crime picks up this book they might be a bit disappointed. It's definitely a slow read, but I found it interesting and informative. I also appreciate that I didn't know about most of the cases discussed, so I was learning new information instead of hearing about ultra-famous serial killers like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, and Sexual harassment