Kiara

Got boring and tedious at the end.

Some parts at the end were repetitive.

I enjoyed reading the defense's perspective of the case. I also read the book written by the prosecutor. While the prosecutor focused more on bashing and discrediting Baez, Baez took the higher ground.
He explains in detail how he presented his case, battled the motions presented by the prosecution, the harsh and sometimes biased reactions of the judge, and the trashing of the media not only of Casey but they also tried to destroy Baez's career.
It was an interesting book to read and to finally see both: perspectives prosecution and defense.

This book was very interesting from beginning to the end. If you have seen the documentaries or the current miniseries The Drop Out, the book will provide you with a more detailed picture of the fraud committed in Theranos. How big names in politics from both sides of the aisle, high ranked military officers, scientists, professors, attorneys, were duped by this young woman.

Everything that was done without concern for the patients' well- being is criminal not forgetting the threats to whoever tried to come forward to the point of one her employees, a devoted chemist decided that suicide was the only way out of the nightmare he was living. It would be interested to see an in-depth profile of Holmes. Why she couldn't stopped when her house of cards was coming down? what makes her tick?

The book kept me interested in finding out more about this case as honestly I never knew the name Epstein until 2018. I liked that there is information about some of the horrible things the victims went through and how they have survived their ordeals which is not easy.
I would have liked more information on how Jeffrey Epstein suddenly becomes a millionaire overnight. There is some information but there are also many unanswered questions of how quick he amassed his fortune.

I was not interested in two things included in this book. This is not an autobiography so the author's private life, financial problems and love life should have been kept off the book. I was not impressed with some of the political biases. The author should had kept with the main story and not sidetracked with personal opinions and editorials but other than that, I enjoyed the book very much.

Former FBI agent and criminal profiler wrote this book about how he got involved in profiling from its inception, pursuing serial killers and how it make an impact in his life at a professional and personal level. If you have watch the Netflix series, you might see some of the scenes in the series in this book although of course with some changes.
But we can't forget that Douglas was not alone. Robert Ressler deserves credit as a great profiler as well and a pioneer with Douglas in criminal profiling.

The book kept my interest for the first half of the book. Their were parts in the second half of the book that became boring and repetitive but it is probably due to the style of the writer.
The author does make you think of certain topics in which sex is for pleasure only because you are not encouraged to have a long lasting relationship. Women are still viewed as meat and their is the superiority of certain groups over others. The caste system and the cloning is presented here as a substitute of the abolition of the nuclear family and individuality.
In a letter that Huxley wrote to Orwell after the he read 1984 sent to him by the author himself, Huxley wrote some interesting things to Huxley:” My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World :”Within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.”

The book started as an interesting read and you wanted to keep reading but when it gets to chapter 10 it just becomes tedious. Chapters devoted to the potential suspect could have been written in a way without the repetitive details. The book was well researched but it did not required 26 chapters to tell the story.

I like the way the writer tells you in detail about the lives of Chris and Shannan Watts. The details of the case have been seen in documentaries. In some of these documentaries, Shannan is portrayed as very innocent, which came out of the blue. I am not saying that Shannan deserves this, and please do not misinterpret what I am saying. Marriage is work. There needs to be compromises and conversations, which must be based on truth. It takes two for the relationship to work.

This marriage started rocky from the moment the in-laws clashed, and there were a few times on everyone's part to make the family dynamic work. Shannan had a strong personality and liked the control, which she admitted. Shannan does talk several times and reflects on her responsibility in the relationship, but it seems that Chris had made up his mind that the only way out was by death. It is still incomprehensible why the little girls he loved so much had to die. They were innocent. This couple was constantly in front of the cameras, claiming perfection and marital bliss. Did they lose their sense of identity and not see the conflicts? Only the Watts know, and as Chris told his parents, he will take to the grave the truth of what happened.
Cases that I can think that have some similarities: Scott Peterson and Diane Downs.: extramarital affairs and the desire of a new start without their children. (less) [edit]

I read this book in Spanish years ago in college. Years later I saw it in the bookstore and decided to read it again in English and read it in two days. I just could not put it down.

Love this book. I used it to do some research on Victorian Homes as we purchased one. The interior was already completely renovated by previous owners so we are working on the exterior and this book has inspired me.

I read the book to see how this faked socialite was able to commit fraud and deceive so many people but the book is really an attempt of the author to feel pity for her ordeal. I don't know why but you can't sympathize for what happened to her. Her personality in the writing makes her unlikable. This a book you can read once and part ways with it.

Taking the writer's style aside that many readers did not enjoyed, I am going to focus in why this case is interesting and in 2003-2004 people were captivated by this case.
According to the evidence, on Monday, January 13, 2003, Susan Wright, 26, tied her husband Jeff Wright, 34, to their bed and stabbed him at least 193 times with two different knives. Following the incident, she dragged his body to the backyard of their home and buried him. In an attempt to clean up the crime, she tried painting the walls of the bedroom. She also went to the police station the following day to report a domestic abuse incident and obtained a restraining order against Jeff, in order to explain his disappearance.

Just five days later, on January 18, Susan Wright called her attorney, Neal Davis, to come to her home, where she admitted to stabbing her husband and burying him in the backyard. Davis informed the Harris County district attorney's office of the body and that she had confessed to the crime. On January 24, Wright turned herself in at the Harris County Courthouse and was arraigned for murder charges a few days following.
The trial itself was unique. They brought the bed where Jeff died and the assistant district attorney re-enacted in a very visual manner how the prosecution thought the murder happened. The book ends without the reader knowing what happened to Susan.
In 2005, the 14th court of Appeals of Texas upheld Susan's conviction. There was a new appeal in 2008, when a new witness, Jeff's ex-fiancee came forward to tell her story of the four years of abuse and violence she endured with Jeff Wright.
There was a new trial in 2010 that focused on the medical examiner's finding in Jeff's body included the high level so of cocaine and defense wounds.
In 2010, Susan Wright's sentenced was reduced to 20 years in prison which is five years less than her original sentence. Susan was denied parole in 2014 and again in 2019. Finally, Susan was released on December 30, 2020 at the age of 44.
There is footage of her coming home with her mother from prison and she is asking the press for privacy foe her and her family. She is not in contact with her now grown children.

Sorry, I tried the audiobook and got bored. Got the book and it was so boring and understanding the someone else finished the book based on her notes, the voice of the author gets lost. The timeline in which the book was written was an issue too. A lot of hype and I have to say it was not worth reading after page 166. I struggled to stay interested and took me over a month to finish it.