All These Bodies
Written by Kendare Blake Book Review by Miranda Moses (Fraser) ISBN:978-0-06-297716-8 My little monster friends, I would be lying if I said that Kendare Blake wasn't one of my favorite authors. Her writing is just so damn good! When I heard she had a new book coming out in September 2021 I was over the moon. It would be out just in time for October Halloween Book Reviews! Add in the fact that this book revolves around a murder mystery with a potential super natural element... Oh my blobs, I am here for it. But let's discuss the book and the amazing writing within. The book takes place in 1958-59, in a TINY town in the middle of nowhere Minnesota- Black Deer Falls. Think farmhouses, small minds, nosey neighbors, etc. The kind of town where everyone's a "good" Christian and people rarely grow up to leave the their hometown. Throughout the summer of 1958, across four states, 16 murders had been committed. Everyone paid attention to the newspapers, marking on their maps where bodies were found. Early curfews and watchful sheriffs- the world was on edge. Everyone thought the murders were over until Black Deer Falls, where a local family was found murdered in their living room. Only this time, there was an extra person left behind. A young girl of 15, was found at the scene covered head to toe in blood... but none of it was hers. The nation was baffled by this information. She was too small, too young, too feminine to have been the killer. Now, you see, her being covered in the victims blood is even more baffling... because these murders were called, "The Bloodless Murders" or "The Dracula Murders" across headlines. Every single victim had been found bled to death. Except there was no blood found at the scene. Where was the blood going? Were they killed elsewhere and then dumped? It made sense in a few of the cases but definitely not all, like the gas station worker killed on the job and found within 30 minutes of his death. There was no time between customers for him to have been killed elsewhere and dumped back at work.... So how was this happening? The answers must lie with this young girl. But the states quickly start fighting over who has the right to try her. All while she insists she never murdered anyone. But she knows who did. And she has a story to tell that the world is far from ready for. A story she will only tell Michael Jensen, the person narrating this novel. The sheriffs son, an aspiring journalist, and a boy of 17 years. Michael works hard to make sense of Marie's stories and help bring answers for the families of the victims. But even he will struggle to make sense of the things he will hear. The story was excellent. A CONSTANT page turner. Blake's writing is one that is always hard to put down. I would liken this story's writing to that of her Anna Dressed In Blood series rather than the slightly more complicated writing of her Three Dark Thrones Series. She covers a lot of real world, serious topics in this novel: poverty, sexism, privilege, domestic violence, and potentially child grooming (it's a little fuzzy if that's actually true or just a theory thrown around by prosecutors). And I think of course the most glaring topic that is shown by this novels existence is just our morbid thirst for true crime. We as a culture tend to be pretty invested in true crime, serial killers, unsolved mysteries, etc. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but there are definitely those who see it as entertainment and lose all sight of what's really happening. In conclusion, I loved this book... up until the vey end. The ending was sad. And, I've seen many others say that they also felt the ending was unsatisfactory. But truth be told, I don't know what other ending we were expecting. I also kind of appreciate the ending... the questions I will always want answers to... The knowledge that truth is sometimes subjective and very hard to swallow. The conflicting feelings of caring for a monster. This book will always hold a special place in my thoughts. And I'm trying so hard to imagine being Kendare Blake and planning out this entire story. And wondering if she knows the answers to the questions she left us with. Did she have it all planned out and then slowly erased it from the novel to leave us wondering? Or is she too thinking about all the possibilities she put into this world? Read on my fellow book worms. My we one day have Belle's library. And as always, links to the author's pages can be found down below.
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