Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

2 reviews

abicaro17's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious tense slow-paced

2.75

This took forever to finish because it was boring. Perry and Dick are two ex convicts who after going on parole, decide to attempt to rob a family in Kansas. The beginning of this book tells you that not only did that not happen but all four members of the Clutter family were brutally murdered. Capote goes on to describe the Clutters home life, Dick and Perrys childhoods/home lives, and their lives in and after prison. The reasons this didn't work for me are that the audience knew who killed the Clutters from the beginning, I didn't care about anyone in this book, and this book is so incredibly long for only being about one night of murder. This could have been a good short book but the length of this was so unnecessary. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

athereaderofbooks's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

2.0

Clearly, I would not recommend this true-crime novel. 

I will give kudos to a couple of aspects of this book: 

1. It was organized in a notable way. It started with showing the past of both the victims and their killers. Their environments were taken into consideration and you developed an idea of their character. Later it led to the investigation and we found out how the murder occurred through confessionals. Truman Capote followed the case until its conclusion. 

2. The entire book was thorough with everything. If something was mentioned it was never offhandedly, and we understood how everyone and everything contributed to the narrative. 

But despite these factors, I hated this book. This is the first time that I have read a true crime book, and this most definitely affected my rating, but this was horrific. Why would I want to read about an entire family being murdered

because some thieves wanted money??

How does one find enjoyment in such a subject when they themself could one day be the victim of such an unsuspecting crime? The Clutters likely never thought of this likelihood and look what happened to them. The only thing this book added to my life was more anxiety, and I already have enough. 

 On top of this, there have been multiple people who have contested the accuracy of this book, saying that there were many pieces of opinion inserted and falsehoods added into the book. (Not just random people online, but people who themselves have analyzed this crime.) 
 
This dragged on and on with a really excessive form of writing and the only interest I had was finishing this book so I could get it over with, understand what happened, and try to forget it. 

And to me, most importantly, there were multiple instances where racial, homophobic, and in general degrading slurs were used. This includes but is not limited to the n-word, the f slur, and out-of-date referrals to Asian, Black, and Native American people. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Rape, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Bullying, Physical abuse, Excrement, Kidnapping, Abandonment, and War