Why Can't Women Seem to Get Enough of True Crime? Rachel Monroe Explores

Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I haven't read any other books by this author.

Was this book enjoyable? It was very interesting, and it also made me keep questioning my motives in being interested in it. A recurring theme in the book is why women are the primary audience for true crime media.

Did I learn anything new from this book? Yes, I learned about the four women covered as its subjects: Frances Glessner Lee (the first woman police captain in the U.S.), Alisa Statman (friend and possibly lover of Sharon Tate's sister Patti), Lorri Davis (who married Damien Wayne Echols while he was on death row for a murder for which he was later exonerated), and Lindsay Souvannarath (an American serving a life sentence in Canada for planning a massacre). I wasn't familiar with any of their names or stories before reading the book.

Where did I get this book? I checked out this audiobook from my local library using the Libby app.

Do I recommend this book to other readers? Yes, it's quite fascinating.

'Ten Days in a Mad-House' by Nellie Bly

Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The saddest and scariest part of this journalistic account from the late 19th century (originally published in 1887) is how easy it was for the reporter to be declared "incurable." No one even remotely tried to "cure" her.

By McD - Penn University library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16890004

In fact, of the women she encountered in the "mad-house," few of them would be considered mentally ill by today's diagnostic standards. No doubt some of them were depressed, but others were grieving. Some of them were just poor. One woman couldn't be evaluated at all because she didn't speak English and none of the four doctors could speak German.

It was shockingly easy for a woman to be locked away forever, mistreated, and deemed incurable just because she had unfortunate life circumstances happen to her.

I listened to this LibriVox audiobook - free public domain books read by volunteers - using the Podcoin app on my phone. Podcoin pays you tiny amounts of money to listen to podcasts and Librivox books. You can donate your pennies to charities or save them up to exchange for gift cards.

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12 Creepy Tales by Edgar Allan Poe
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Julius Casear by William Shakespeare
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte