This Looks Like a Book Full of Many Lessons (for readers)
I love the cover for this book. It’s really different from what readers normally see on murder and suspense stories and it made me want to pick up the book and read what it was about. I love that Bailey and Celeste are still a big part of the main character's life and memories- still so many years after what happened. And, I think that is, because no one ever discovered what happened to the girls. Where sometimes things fade with lots of time when there are no answers it is harder- when the mystery has never been solved like in this book.
In the first chapter I get this slight disgust and then sadness for Trulee who has grown up in Mount Orange, Florida, a town, it seems, that relishes murder. While I can understand that there would be statues to murder victims, in a way, the fact that now the town has become a gathering place for those that are obsessed with serial killers- kinda sickens a reader (and person), in a big way. And then to find out that Trulee’s sister is a “sort-of'' victim for having died but since it wasn’t anything more than a “tragic accident”- they don’t fit in as well as the “real murder victims.” And even with a sister who has died- Trulee reenacts the murder of Bailey over and over- like what happened to the girl is some sort of game.
After reading that someone will soon be after Trulee in the book makes me really want to read it til the end. No offense, but the girl needs to feel real fear rather than “play acting” the murders of real people as she does. But the way in which she was raised, how the town sensationalizes murder- you can see how someone would end up the way in which Trulee has. And it’s really sad and something that needs to change in this world. There is no reason that we should be celebrating murder- putting victims or killers up on a pedestal. And the sad fact will always remain that none of us knows what it was like to be killed in this way, murdered, and to think that Trulee says she feels the girls “panic swell in her chest” and through “her eyes I see it all unfold.” It’s crazy to think she really believes she knows these things.
And while this is a fictional character I am sure that there are real people like this out there. People who treat killers and murder in this way- think that they know more than they do. Because for no reason, unless you end up dead at a murderer's hands, you don’t know and never will. And if you do want to know that bad- it’s quite sick so you may as well just beg a killer to kill you. Because the world is never a better place when people think they know things that they don’t. Usually these are always ignorant people that are a pain in the butt- thinking they know things they never could. But, you have to give Trulee a little of a pass, the town she grew up in, obviously full of ignorant people and having her sister end up dead. The worst, too, is that her sister’s death didn’t seem good enough to put her in this “upper echelon” murder status.And that Trulee fights to keep Dani’s name alive, along with the other two “better victims”- sick and sweet, in a way. I mean, if everyone remembers murder victims in this way- why does her sister not have this status too- it’s a sad dichotomy she is caught up in.
That Trulee spent her childhood looking for clues to catch a killer is also sad. Maybe this can be a book that teaches others what sensationalizing murder can do to children. When I was young when anyone in our family died, my parents did their best to conceal the fact from us, the children. I was pretty angry about that because it gave me a pretty hearty dose of fear about death. I mean when you go to the point of hiding something a child is at an age they know has happened and should be attending a funeral to say goodbye to a loved one- there is a fine line you must run between too much and too little. I had too little told to me about death so it became fearful. Trulee, it seems, was at the entire opposite of the spectrum, in which young girls are murdered and she was so desensitized about that fact that she could play act murders and look for clues. Children should never be enacting murders.
This sounds like a great book that I would be very interested in finishing. Regardless if I do, I hope others that read it take a look at the positives and negatives in the book. Like what Trulee’s life was like because she grew up in a town that went overboard in sensationalizing murder, serial murderers, in fact. What are the positives and negatives of this? And, as much as we want to remember the victims, is putting large statues of them a good way to remember them? To have, ever present the fact of how they died? Isn’t that, in a way, the wrong way to remember them? Because, I think, had I ever been a murder victim, I would like to be remembered for everything but the way in which I died. I would actually not like people to forget, because I wouldn’t want it to happen again. But I would want people to remember the better times and children to grow up in a better world.
In the first chapter I get this slight disgust and then sadness for Trulee who has grown up in Mount Orange, Florida, a town, it seems, that relishes murder. While I can understand that there would be statues to murder victims, in a way, the fact that now the town has become a gathering place for those that are obsessed with serial killers- kinda sickens a reader (and person), in a big way. And then to find out that Trulee’s sister is a “sort-of'' victim for having died but since it wasn’t anything more than a “tragic accident”- they don’t fit in as well as the “real murder victims.” And even with a sister who has died- Trulee reenacts the murder of Bailey over and over- like what happened to the girl is some sort of game.
After reading that someone will soon be after Trulee in the book makes me really want to read it til the end. No offense, but the girl needs to feel real fear rather than “play acting” the murders of real people as she does. But the way in which she was raised, how the town sensationalizes murder- you can see how someone would end up the way in which Trulee has. And it’s really sad and something that needs to change in this world. There is no reason that we should be celebrating murder- putting victims or killers up on a pedestal. And the sad fact will always remain that none of us knows what it was like to be killed in this way, murdered, and to think that Trulee says she feels the girls “panic swell in her chest” and through “her eyes I see it all unfold.” It’s crazy to think she really believes she knows these things.
And while this is a fictional character I am sure that there are real people like this out there. People who treat killers and murder in this way- think that they know more than they do. Because for no reason, unless you end up dead at a murderer's hands, you don’t know and never will. And if you do want to know that bad- it’s quite sick so you may as well just beg a killer to kill you. Because the world is never a better place when people think they know things that they don’t. Usually these are always ignorant people that are a pain in the butt- thinking they know things they never could. But, you have to give Trulee a little of a pass, the town she grew up in, obviously full of ignorant people and having her sister end up dead. The worst, too, is that her sister’s death didn’t seem good enough to put her in this “upper echelon” murder status.And that Trulee fights to keep Dani’s name alive, along with the other two “better victims”- sick and sweet, in a way. I mean, if everyone remembers murder victims in this way- why does her sister not have this status too- it’s a sad dichotomy she is caught up in.
That Trulee spent her childhood looking for clues to catch a killer is also sad. Maybe this can be a book that teaches others what sensationalizing murder can do to children. When I was young when anyone in our family died, my parents did their best to conceal the fact from us, the children. I was pretty angry about that because it gave me a pretty hearty dose of fear about death. I mean when you go to the point of hiding something a child is at an age they know has happened and should be attending a funeral to say goodbye to a loved one- there is a fine line you must run between too much and too little. I had too little told to me about death so it became fearful. Trulee, it seems, was at the entire opposite of the spectrum, in which young girls are murdered and she was so desensitized about that fact that she could play act murders and look for clues. Children should never be enacting murders.
This sounds like a great book that I would be very interested in finishing. Regardless if I do, I hope others that read it take a look at the positives and negatives in the book. Like what Trulee’s life was like because she grew up in a town that went overboard in sensationalizing murder, serial murderers, in fact. What are the positives and negatives of this? And, as much as we want to remember the victims, is putting large statues of them a good way to remember them? To have, ever present the fact of how they died? Isn’t that, in a way, the wrong way to remember them? Because, I think, had I ever been a murder victim, I would like to be remembered for everything but the way in which I died. I would actually not like people to forget, because I wouldn’t want it to happen again. But I would want people to remember the better times and children to grow up in a better world.