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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Book Review: The Devil in the White City

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a book review here, so I thought I’d share.

 

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed AmericaThe Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book started out really slowly for me, but it was accounting events in history. It isn't my usual type of book to read, and I never really poured through history books in school, either. Once I got past the beginning, though, Larson really did a good job of fleshing out the key players in the story. This book was packed with interesting facts about products and inventions that came about during the time period. I felt like I learned so much while reading this book, and I was eager to share with anyone near me what I was learning.

I found myself routing for the architects and all the workers who took on such great feats to create such a magical world's fair in such a short amount of time. At the same time, I was wishing that someone would stop the evil Dr. Holmes. Toward the end of the book, I was feeling discouraged on both points, but I’m glad I kept reading.

While I love a good crime drama, this was extra creepy since the events actually happened. It left me feeling so grateful for modern forensics! Larson doesn’t go into a lot of gory detail about the killings, although he does describe the feelings of the victims in some situations and in what condition the bodies were found. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves to learn about history or the private dealings of a murderer. As long as you don’t let your imagination run wild and terrify yourself, you should be okay.

Have you read it? What did you think? Are you reading anything good right now? Let’s chat!

1 comment:

  1. I definitely prefered the parts not about the killer, though it was certainly interesting. There were a lot of world's fair subjects I wanted to know more about after the author touched on them.

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