A review by samanthampg
A Guide for Murdered Children by Sarah Sparrow
1.0
I'm gonna be honest, I had to push myself through this book. I had such high hopes because the synopsis sounded so interesting, but it did not live up to my dreams.
TLDR: don't waste your time
I had issues with the pacing of the story, I kept waiting for it to get exciting and it just didn't. I'm not a personal fan of the writing style, I found it over detailed in areas that didn't matter. I didn't think that the reveal of who did it was very satisfactory either, and the ending didn't meet my expectations either.
The main character Willow was not a good person, and I can grow to love a bad person if they deserve it, but Willow remained a constantly bad person. Sure he wasn't an alcoholic making terrible life choices anymore but he still saw women as objects (referring to his girlfriend as “young pu**y”, he has a lesbian friend and when she asked if he wanted her to visit he said she might have “SDC - sudden d*ck craving”. He made jokes calling himself "special needs", he used the F slur and the list goes on. Willow was a horrible person and I didn't care what happened to him at all.
This book was uncomfortable, not because of the murdered children but because the author didn't shy away from plotlines that really didn't add to the overall story and could've not happened. Maya and Troy (brother and sister children) inhabit two cops who are sleeping together. Why did they have to be doing that? we could have not had that been happening. I don't feel uncomfortable about a lot of topics, but that I did not approve of.
The author also used the N word three times when it wasn't needed and it didn't feel like it was coming from a place that was being used to showcase something important. The character who used it was a terrible, child killer, so yes maybe he would use that word. But it didn't add anything in the moment for him to be saying it, we knew he was a terrible person without him having to throw the N word in there. It didn't sit right with me considering the author is white to my knowledge.
CHECK TRIGGER WARNINGS IF YOU'RE GOING TO READ THIS BOOK BECAUSE IT HAS A LOT OF THEM
TLDR: don't waste your time
I had issues with the pacing of the story, I kept waiting for it to get exciting and it just didn't. I'm not a personal fan of the writing style, I found it over detailed in areas that didn't matter. I didn't think that the reveal of who did it was very satisfactory either, and the ending didn't meet my expectations either.
The main character Willow was not a good person, and I can grow to love a bad person if they deserve it, but Willow remained a constantly bad person. Sure he wasn't an alcoholic making terrible life choices anymore but he still saw women as objects (referring to his girlfriend as “young pu**y”, he has a lesbian friend and when she asked if he wanted her to visit he said she might have “SDC - sudden d*ck craving”. He made jokes calling himself "special needs", he used the F slur and the list goes on. Willow was a horrible person and I didn't care what happened to him at all.
This book was uncomfortable, not because of the murdered children but because the author didn't shy away from plotlines that really didn't add to the overall story and could've not happened. Maya and Troy (brother and sister children) inhabit two cops who are sleeping together. Why did they have to be doing that? we could have not had that been happening. I don't feel uncomfortable about a lot of topics, but that I did not approve of.
The author also used the N word three times when it wasn't needed and it didn't feel like it was coming from a place that was being used to showcase something important. The character who used it was a terrible, child killer, so yes maybe he would use that word. But it didn't add anything in the moment for him to be saying it, we knew he was a terrible person without him having to throw the N word in there. It didn't sit right with me considering the author is white to my knowledge.
CHECK TRIGGER WARNINGS IF YOU'RE GOING TO READ THIS BOOK BECAUSE IT HAS A LOT OF THEM