Lost Girls

Extremely thorough victimology. Worth a read for anyone interested in criminal profiling. I hope these murders don't remain unsolved forever.

A well-done piece of long journalism. Tragic subject–it really left me feeling angry thinking about the way murdered women seem to go ignored and without justice so often.

I do wish there had been a bit more info on the police's actions, evidence, etc., but I'm glad the author chose to share the victims' stories in such intimate detail. These are real people, and the way some chose to brush them off because of their dire situations is infuriating and depressing all at once.

I started listening to this and had to stop about a quarter of the way through. This is a frankly depressing, and worse, hopeless, story. The girls are all born into the working poor, most from young, single mothers and many raised by grandmothers. Their lives are riddled with addiction, petty crime, drug abuse, and violence. I honestly could not keep track of the characters - the girls were living copies of their mothers, who never strayed far from their own mothers' bleak, bleak lives.
I couldn't see a reason to like or respect anyone in this book, so I just stopped. I'm not quite sure why this book received any acclaim - I thought death would come as a blessing after such a bleak life. Perhaps that's cruel, but I blame the author for not engaging my sympathies.