Study Guide

My suspicions that true crime really isn't my thing has been confirmed by reading I'll Be Gone in the Dark. It's incredibly upsetting reading this knowing these horrific acts happened to real people and I couldn't help thinks how dying whilst in fear for the person you love must be one of the worst ways to go. Both Popsugar and Read Harder require true crime books this year, so I made myself read this, and you should bear that in mind whilst reading this review. I'm sure fans of the genre will gobble it up.

I didn't know much about the Golden State Killer, or East Area Rapist (EAR) or Original Night Stalker (ONS) as he was also known. It was too long ago and too far away to reach my sphere of paying attention, but it is clear from reading this book that whole communities lived in a state of terror for years. One of the worst things must have been that he struck couple in their own home. You should feel safe behind locked doors with the person you chose to spend your life with.

Whilst I didn't like reading about the crimes themselves, I was more interested in the investigation and ongoing support for it from cold case enthusiasts. At several times I wondered if things would have been different these days. Would news spread and links be made much sooner? Would houses be so easy to break into? Would surveillance and DNA technology trip him up?

Throughout the book you see how the case was kept alive by advancements in forensic technology, with DNA linking more cases than anyone ever thought possible. You may have heard the suspect has been arrested this year, although that is not included in the book. Sadly Michelle died before she could finish the book or see the killer brought to justice. It definitely feels unfinished, and there is a big difference between the fully fleshed out chapters and the parts that have been pieced together from notes.

It does come across that Michelle sees the victims as people and not just pieces of a puzzle. Maybe that's why it's so upsetting, beacuse she is not clinical in describing the crimes. She also touches on the impact of the rapes on the survivors, as not every couple was murdered. The book is also part memoir, as she comes to terms with what has become an obsession for her.

I felt the introduction from Gillian Flynn was a bit pointless, it just regurgitated bits from the rest of the book, but I imagine it was put there to help sell the book. In the end, it turns out that catching the killer was the biggest publicity jackpot they could have hoped for. I'd be interested to see if they publish an updated edition once a conviction has been made.

Jude and Taryn are seven when their parents are brutally murdered by a fae, a fae who happens to be their half-sister's father. All three girls are whisked away to Faerie to be raised by the murderer.

Jump forward ten years and you find out things haven't been as bad as you'd imagine based on that opening. In the prologue, you get the feeling the story will focus on Viv who is the daughter of Madoc, but as it switches to the first person narrative you discover that mortal Jude is the narrator. Viv is the one who rebels the most against life in the High Court of Faerie, but Jude and Taryn are more accepting. After all, they barely knew the human world.

Things aren't all peaches though, and Jude is being bullied by the popular, posh, kids. Their ringleader? Prince Cardan, fifth in line to the throne (not that it works like that there, but he's pretty unlikely to be king compared to his siblings). A large portion of the book focuses on Jude's bullying. Taryn things she should let it slide and do what they want to make life easier for them, but how far can you let them go?


Jude's adoptive father (and, don't forget, parent killer) Madoc is in charge of the High King's military and Jude would love nothing more than to be one of his knights. Taryn just wants her happy ever after and Viv wants to live with her mortal girlfriend in the human world. The current High King is abdicating and a coronation is on the horizon.

It's only about two thirds the way in that things get interesting, until then it felt like quite a generic fae storyline, with added bullying. I mean, if you haven't read many books about the cruel and brutal type of fae, you might feel a bit more engaged but it was a very slow start for me. Yet the last third? It was gripping and full of political manoeuvring. Lots I didn't see coming! Honestly, I know a lot of the build-up was necessary to make everything work, I just didn't love it until I knew that was happening.

Although mortals are looked down upon in general I liked that they did have one prized skill, the ability to lie. Whilst the fae can be tricksy with their words, they can't lie outright. They totally don't get sarcasm!

Based on the ending I would definitely read the second book, even if this one didn't tick all my boxes.

I managed to avoid finding out exactly what this book was about before listening to it.  I didn't even read the full blurb.  (I deleted the part I didn't read in the synopsis above.)  Not knowing what was going to happen let the emotional impact of the book hit me full force.  This is an amazing and necessary book.  If any of you are thinking, "I read The Hate U Give, I don't need to read this one," get that out of your brain.  While the subject matter is similar, these books are very, very different.  Dear Martin depicts an attempt by an African-American teenager to move past an emotionally traumatizing incident with a police officer.  He finds that that is harder than he expects though as his eyes are opened to what is going on around him.  I appreciated the way he struggles with different approaches to living in a racist society through his interactions with several adult African-American men in his life.  Each discusses his struggles and his way of surviving, allowing Justyce to try to choose the best options for him.  The narration in this book was very well done by Dion Graham.  It is a short audiobook at just four and a half hours.  This is one that I will relisten to with my husband in the future.  I don't want to say much more about the book.  If you don't already know the whole plot, I'd recommend just starting this story without finding out much more.  This is a hard-hitting book that will move you.  It is a must read for everyone. This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story

Golden Freedom was written by a friend of mine I met in law school, John Power, and was self-published. It chronicles a fresh-out-of-college youth who embarks on a trip to find out what he wants to do with his life. It is not a whiney, bitchy, or complaining novel, it is merely a story about a young man who is unsure of what to do. The main character, Gregg Rask, bored with working as a legal assistant and in possession of a considerable savings account, decides to quit his job and live with his brother, who works for the U.S. State Department, in Poland. He passes on law school, despite the never-ending protests from his parents, and tries to continue the same lifestyle he had before graduating from college and the appearance of that trifling “real world”.

After spending nearly a year in Poland, Rask returns to America with the realization that there are no easy answers, perhaps no real sense of fate or purpose; there are merely challenges that people must face or run from. Rask, without giving away too much, faces his challenges in a way that not too many people would. He realizes, at some level, that people make decisions that direct the future of their lives. Making a decision may not make things more certain or definite, but it is what people do. It may be unsatisfying in a sense, but it is life.

What I enjoyed most about this novel was the description Power used to evoke real, human emotions. Here is how Power described Rask’s introduction to Poland:

In the decade and a half since capitalism arrived it had come to show itself in a tacky manner. In America capitalism was integrated with the very fiber of a community. Here, it was pasted on top. Billboards rose up where it didn’t seem it should, across from churches or cemeteries, and even when the advertisement wasn’t that bad, it seemed oddly out of place. Small houses stood next to giant rotating cell phones offering the cheapest rates. There seemed to be none of the subtleties of advertising Rask was used to. Bigger and flashier was better, women wearing very little was best. Somehow a woman on the moon in leather short-shorts and a tea-cup bra was used to sell coffee. The Old Town, Rask would find, was held rather sacrosanct, but the suburbs and downtown areas were free game, and ready for anyone who wanted to hang a giant sign for anything. There seemed to be no town hall committee to discuss zoning rights or the difference between commercial and residential neighborhoods.

Power’s description of Rask’s visit to Auschwitz is particularly moving and a must-read. The reader is practically looking through Rask’s eyes as he experiences the utter horror of the Holocaust at a human and real level by seeing the personal effects of those who did not survive the concentration camp. Power has Rask focus on a single shoe to bring home the enormity of what happened at Auschwitz. Instead of looking at the overall numbers, Power chooses to look at the suffering at an individual level, and it certainly reaches the reader and Rask as well. Rask’s exposure to this actual suffering, to the reality of life, is difficult for him to handle, and an experience that certainly helps him grow as a person and prepares him for what he does at the end of the book (no spoilers).

As I read this book, I felt that Power really had an insight to the internal struggles of people of my generation. The novel begins at a wedding, something that tends to scare most people my age. I recall that when I got married, most of my friends tried to discourage me and commented that my life was ending. It was as if the idea of people getting married was akin to suicide, mutilation, or becoming a monk and choosing to forgo all pleasures of life. Power grasped that basic fear that this generation has and expressed it perfectly in this brief passage:

“You’re married,” Rask said in a tone he intended to be complimentary, but that he couldn’t keep from sounding alarmed and shocked and a little guilty, as if there was something he could have done to save Fred.

Another thing that I liked about this novel was the description of the lives of those who work for an Embassy. It was something that I had not thought about and found intriguing. I’m not much for anthropology, but I enjoyed being exposed to the social structure and living patterns of the Embassy crew. The description, in fact, reminded me in many ways of Richard Price’s novels. Power seemed to have the same intuitive grasp of the characters involved and the over-arching struggles they faced.

Power took a fairly simple story, that of a young man evading responsibility for another year by going abroad, and made a compelling novel out of it. There is more than enough to keep those who are part of and outside of my generation interested, and I highly recommend it to everyone. If you wish to buy Golden Freedom, you can order it here. There a few spelling errors, but nothing major, nothing that will distract you as you read (for some reason, “in case” is most always printed as one word, but that’s about it). Oh, and don’t worry about paying for the extremely expensive shipping that Lulu recommends. I went with the cheaper method and it got here in a few days with no problems.