A review by braunems
Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest by Gregg Olsen

3.0

Very interesting story and clearly very well-researched, but the writing is sometimes awkward and much of it seems to be speculation to enrich the "plot." The author writes dialogue and internal thoughts that detract from the believability of the book. How can he know exactly what was said in 1913? How does he know what that person thought in that moment? It feels like he wants to make nonfiction into a novel, which can work sometimes, but in this case it distracted from what was really important, which is that this is a true story and it is dramatic and heartbreaking and absolutely bonkers enough without the unnecessary embellishments and artistic license. There were also a lot of awkward sentences that almost felt like they were translated from another language. But in general, I really enjoyed the book and appreciated the amount of research and the use of oral history and interviews.