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A review by washu97
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
3.0
Another reviewer wrote perfectly what I was thinking throughout the entire book, so I won't try to repeat it in detail. In brief - it feels like the author wanted to write a historical account of the Columbian Expo and his editor said, "Let's spice it up with murder!"
The author tackles 2 books that are only tangentially related and puts them into one incredibly long book that doesn't always flow well from one topic to the other. My biggest complaint is that the author got caught up in the historical language of the time and continued to use it outside of the quoted material. I consider myself to be very well read and quite a word-nerd, yet I ended up downloading the digital copy from the library so that I could utilize the in-book thesaurus and wikipedia. There were simply too many superfluous words when something simpler would do ;)
Overall, the account of the fair and all of its trials was excellent. 4.5 stars for the White City, 2 stars for the Devil = 3 stars for The Decil in the White City.
The author tackles 2 books that are only tangentially related and puts them into one incredibly long book that doesn't always flow well from one topic to the other. My biggest complaint is that the author got caught up in the historical language of the time and continued to use it outside of the quoted material. I consider myself to be very well read and quite a word-nerd, yet I ended up downloading the digital copy from the library so that I could utilize the in-book thesaurus and wikipedia. There were simply too many superfluous words when something simpler would do ;)
Overall, the account of the fair and all of its trials was excellent. 4.5 stars for the White City, 2 stars for the Devil = 3 stars for The Decil in the White City.