Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

3 reviews

robinwritesallthethings's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

5.0

What It’s About: This is a dual narrative detailing the execution of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and the dealings of famous serial killer H. H. Holmes during the same time period. At first blush, the two topics don’t seem to go together, but it becomes clear throughout the story that Holmes likely wouldn’t have been able to accomplish everything he did in the city without the excitement and opportunities provided by the grand event.

Plot: Holmes is quite a well-known figure, but there is a lot of misinformation floating around about his exploits. This book is a very realistic accounting of his activities, leaving room for doubt where it’s necessary, but also speculating about moments no one possibly could have witnessed. While I thought I wouldn’t be as interested in the part about building the fair, I actually found it very compelling. Knowing all the facts, it’s shocking that there was ever a fair at all. It’s also apparent that Holmes’ portion by itself doesn’t actually take up much space. He was a consummate liar, so not a lot can be said about him that is verifiable. Adding the fair gives the history more weight and heft, and at the same time provides a necessary context for how Holmes escaped detection for so long. The advantage of combining both is also that they are complete, so there is resolution at the end of everything on all sides.

Research and Organization: The organization here is essentially chronological, and flips back and forth between the fair and Holmes when necessary to frame what he was doing while Chicago was focused elsewhere. Many primary sources are used and quoted, and when they are not available, copious research was used to recreate circumstances that were not observed.

Trigger Warnings: Because of the time that the book covers, you’ll encounter period-typical racism and sexism. There is a lot of poverty and general death, as well as the obvious murder because of one of the book’s subjects.

Final Thoughts: This was a more somber and less sensational true crime novel than others I’ve read, but ultimately, I feel like it worked. It was very informative, and sheds light on a crime spree that it’s likely just wouldn’t be possible today because of the way everything is connected.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Torture, and Murder

Moderate: Abortion

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Miscarriage

headachesince03's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative inspiring mysterious tense slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

cupofbooksreviews's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

I have given The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson two out of five stars ⭐️⭐️

A dark and devious book filled with architecture and killings. A mixture of two I never thought I would read in the same book.

This book started off quite strong for me; learning about an architect called Daniel H. Burnham and a serial killer called H.H. Holmes. I find non-fiction books fascinating especially when based around true crime events, although that meant that there were a lot of brutal attacks that happened to a lot of people.

I found this book started to repeat itself quite a lot, especially during the chapters that surround Daniel Burnham and the architecture of the Chicago World Fair. I appreciated that the information was important and relevant however, due to the repeated information I started to become quite bored of Daniel Burnham’s story. 

As I became less intrigued by this book, I ended up reading this book for a fair few weeks which dragged out the experience. I had hoped there was more information regarding H.H. Holmes rather than Daniel Burnham.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Abortion, Murder, and Alcohol