A review by bookishcori
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
I’ll start with what I loved: the way Cosby writes about his home and a sense of place, about complicated people and families, about masculinity, about the underbelly of rural Virginia and the overt racism. The writing itself is truly top notch. Also the scene with Titus and his brother on the porch near the end was 😭.
Hearing an interview where Cosby shared how he chooses to write crime/thrillers that seamlessly weave in “issues” that folks may otherwise not engage with makes sense and he excels at this. It never feels forced - you know how some authors throw in random hot button topics and it is irrelevant? Not here, because he’s writing from a Southern Black man’s experience and this is reality.
But here’s the thing, I used to consume a lot of gory serial killer and police procedural media and I no longer like these storylines. This was…too much. Sociopaths, pedophilia, violence against children, flayed and tortured bodies. 🤢 The saving grace here was that all the other aspects of the story were compelling.
If you like law and order: svu, silence of the lambs, or that James Patterson book turned movie about kidnapped girls held in a basement dungeon, check this out. You’ll get more substance with the shock value.
Hearing an interview where Cosby shared how he chooses to write crime/thrillers that seamlessly weave in “issues” that folks may otherwise not engage with makes sense and he excels at this. It never feels forced - you know how some authors throw in random hot button topics and it is irrelevant? Not here, because he’s writing from a Southern Black man’s experience and this is reality.
But here’s the thing, I used to consume a lot of gory serial killer and police procedural media and I no longer like these storylines. This was…too much. Sociopaths, pedophilia, violence against children, flayed and tortured bodies. 🤢 The saving grace here was that all the other aspects of the story were compelling.
If you like law and order: svu, silence of the lambs, or that James Patterson book turned movie about kidnapped girls held in a basement dungeon, check this out. You’ll get more substance with the shock value.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Blood, Pedophilia, Racism, Torture, Violence, Child abuse, Murder, and Child death