Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

3 reviews

bcooper21's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Grief, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Animal death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Vomit, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury

moraina's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

This was a very slow read for me. I appreciate that Truman Capote presented everything as factual and didn’t sensationalize, since these were real people that were affected by an awful crime. However, his lengthy descriptions and tedious run-on sentences sometimes made it difficult to stay engaged. I think he did do a fair job representing the events that happened and provided both commentary from a more outside perspective as well as representing how the community felt during these events, but the writing style did lessen my enjoyment of the book.

The descriptions of Dick and Perry’s capture and subsequent trial really did make me think on what is considered substantial evidence and a fair trial. I think Capote also did a good job delving into the ethics of capital punishment. It is interesting to see how much more religion played a role in these matters, given both the time period and geographic location of the events. Exploring the childhood of Perry, in particular, does end up being rather important for understanding the murders. I found the discussion of childhood abuse and the reasons for “murders with no apparent motive” quite interesting as well (although terrible, of course).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Suicide, Torture, Blood, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Abandonment

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Rape

Minor: Animal death and Terminal illness

librarymouse's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.25

This text was jarring in that there was vibrant and comprehensive descriptions of seemingly innocuous details and then facts like Hickock's pedophilic tendencies were dropped into the middle of a paragraph, only to be left and then picked up again after dozens of pages. The descriptions of the Clutters, their family life, their friends, and their pastoral joys made the details of their deaths all the more profoundly upsetting. I appreciated the depth of research that went into this book and the information given on the communities the Clutters and their killers spent time in, but I am also, in some ways, upset with the lengths at which this book works to humanize the killers. It's bitter to feel something akin to empathy with either of them or the men that lived with them on death row.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, and Alcohol