Savage Appetites

I liked each individual chapter - I think my favorite was the one about the Tate family and the rise of the idea of victim's rights. I wanted a little more connection/analysis between the chapters, though; I didn't feel that there was much of a through line to them all and I would have liked more trying to connect the dots about why women in particular feel drawn to true crime, and what leads people to focus on one aspect of true crime instead of another. (Also I would have been really interested to read more about whether being interested in true crime is as much of a middle-class white lady phenomenon as it seems - I say this as a middle-class white lady myself, but an unscientific survey of my friends seems to indicate that this is the case.) In reading the notes at the end, apparently most of these were published previously online or in magazines, which is not a problem at all; each chapter is obviously meticulously researched and well-written, but I did want some more connective tissue between them all.

I'm so here for the post-true crime trend of books (like, this one and [b:Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession 35180951 Dead Girls Essays on Surviving an American Obsession Alice Bolin https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1515482267l/35180951.SY75.jpg 56517990] makes a trend, right?) trying to unpack the appeal of true crime. (Which for me, is personally very limited but I'm sort of fascinated with why others like it??) This is kind of a collection of long essays and each of them were very interesting. I couldn't believe I was finding another new take on the Manson story after my summer deep dive into Mansons, but here it is!