Linda Castillo 3: Breaking Silence

The Feels:

    We begin inside of the killer's mind, just before the murder. She did this in the first book as well and I liked it. It makes the book more exciting. It also instills a little fear in the reader; really sucks you in.

    I picked up on the number of police codes used in this specific book. That was fun to look at. Here's a chart I found if you're at all interested: https://copradar.com/tencodes/ 

    There were a lot of great twists in this book. I felt like my main reactions were 😲😳😱. Of these first three books, I would say this one has the best mystery. I've read this one before and this one has always sort of stuck with me. Very Agatha Christie. 

    One major idea that stuck out to me was the bigotry against the Amish. Having grown up in the rural Midwest, I could see some of it. Where I come from, I see Amish and Mennonites every so often. My experience has been only positive. I have heard some negative rumors about how "they" treat their horses that has been concerning to me, but I recognized that could just be a few isolated incidents. 

The Concerns:

   The main story starts off inside Pickle's head. He's the old guy, "reserve" cop. It was not fun being in his head. Talking sh*t about Mona and women cops. I f*ckin love Mona. Well, I guess Castillo is a good writer; she can even get inside that Macho Greatest Generation-Elder Boomer Gender B.S.

    Castillo's two favorite words; pump/pumping/pumped and staccato. Please😂, find better words. People also are constantly raising "a shoulder" then letting it "drop" and taking stairs "two at a time". Linda. Linda. You're a better writer than that. Or should be blame the copy editors on this one? They should have picked up on that.

    A bigger issue I have with this book is how the police handle suspects... In this post George Floyd era, I think crime writers need to be more mindful of how the police act, even if they are 100% the character has committed a crime. This is America, and even convicted criminals have rights, let alone suspects who have not been before a judge. Kate and Tomisettei got too far in this one. I know they both have trauma and PTSD they are working on. That is not an excuse for them to take that out on suspects. 

Overall, a great read! 

Plot: 9/10
Writing Style: 7/10
Meaningfullness: 8/10

Linda Castillo 2: Pray for Silence

The Feels: 

    Yay! Kate is getting closer with Tommestti. They have a few great... moments... together😜. I didn't realize their age difference until this read... I think Castillo should have upped her age just a little. She's only 31? I thought she was at least 35 or 36. 

    We learn more about Kate's past. I would have liked to have been able to meet her family in this one. (She spoke with them in the last book, so where are they in this one?) The mystery itself it pretty good in this one. It was good for Castillo to base the killing around someone Kate can self identify with. It helps her character grow and helps us empathize with her as an audience. 

The Concerns:

   This was one of the weaker books in the series. I, along with a few others, were a bit confused by who the killer is. There were a LOT of suspects in this book and for some reason, it was difficult for me to keep track of them. Even after finishing and doing some digging on Goodreads, I'm still confused as to why Castillo didn't pick a different character. *SPOILERS* I thought the killer was going to be the guy who sold a few Amish hex symbols to the shop the girl worked at. I honestly don't remember his name and it is very possible that he could have been one of the accomplices. It just felt like he was set up to be the killer because he was so charming when talking to Kate. The actual killer was terrified when Kate interviewed him, which is weird, because Kate refers to him as a sociopath when he is unmasked. Overall, a good read, there are just a handful of weird details that don't full add up. 

Plot: 7/10
Writing Style: 8/10
Meaningfullness: 7/10

Linda Castillo 1: Sworn to Silence/An Amish Murder

*A Trigger Warning: The Kate Burkholder Series contains many plot lines around sexual assault and murder.

This post gets to be me killing two birds with one stone; a series review and a film adaptation! Linda Castillo's newest novel, The Outsider, was just published a few days ago, so I've been wanting to write about her Kate Burkholder Series. I was first introduced to her book series through the Lifetime movie, An Amish Murder, which is an adaptation of Castillo's first book in the series, Sworn to Silence.

I rewatched the movie the other day with my mom, who is also an avid fan of the Kate Burkholder Series. It had been a while since I had last watched it, but it has held up well! An Amish Murder originally aired in 2013 and stars Neve Campbell as Kate Burkholder. As a young girl, Kate was sworn to keep the secret of what happened to her and is forced to leave her Amish culture behind. Returning to her part English (those that are non-Amish) and part Amish hometown in Painters Mill, Ohio, she has found solace in her roll as chief of police. Tragedy strikes when a young girl is found murdered in a similar manner to the way a serial killer had been attacking women 17 years ago. Is it the same man? Could it be a copy-cat killer? Why is this BCI agent John Tommesetti so handsome? What will he uncover?

The film and the novel mirror each other pretty well. The only major difference being is that the film had to cut out certain parts and a few suspects. The novel is based around the reader learning more about Kate and her past. The reader also learns some more really important information about Tomesetti's past as well. 

Castillo also adds in a nice range of diversity into the novels. She has clearly tired her best to research Amish culture and does her best maintaining respect for their way of life. She also adds in a Black cop who bonds well with Kate due to their "non-traditional" identities as cops.

The biggest struggle is handling the sexual assaults and PTSD in the book. I believe that Castillo has done her research on how trauma can effect a person and has applied this well to her characters. She represents trauma in a fairly realistic way, which is hard to do. 

Overall, a great start to a series. And Neve Campbell was the PERFECT Kate Burkholder.

Plot: 9/10
Writing Style: 9/10
Meaningfullness: 9/10

*Because the film and novel are so similar I have decided to give them the same rating.

Best Film Adaptations: Umm.. What?

I was thinking about doing a few different series based on different film adaptions of books. I was doing some digging online and found that many lists are basically sausagefests. A lot of Stephen King bull and The Godfather/Fight Club nonsense. Stephen King doesn't even like most of his film adaptations and the ones he does are terrible! (Yeah fuck you The Mist). I also saw some nasty things like Gone With the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird (stab me with a frickin soul with a spork). Then I saw Hidden Figures on a list of "novel" adaptations. You rude-growing turds! That actually happened (except for the part with Kevin Kosner, fuck him and is white savior complex), so it is in fact NOT a novel. For more petty reasons; frickin Little Women 2019, a movie that stole an Oscar from ROCKETMAN! I didn't even see Rocketman, but just based on the trailer, the costuming was far superior. I mean it's Elton fucking John; the mutherfucking style icon himself and they were spot on. Give.them.the.damn.Oscar.

So now I have to do a few different series on best adaptations. I think I'll just start off with a few of my favorite basic level adaptation. The one where they just take the book and put it into movie form. I have a few other categories like Modernized/Teen Dramas and Fantasy adaptations. There are also a few authors that I will be separating out like Jane Austen and the Bronte Sisters. I'm not doing Shakespeare, because he's part of this whole sausagefest problem. And after glancing at my list again, I realize it's practically a Target in the suburbs, cause it's almost all white authors and almost white narratives. As of writing this I have three stories of color being told by white people (*ick*), one that was supposed to have all characters of color but was whitewashed (Tales of Earthsea), two Western properties (Anne of Green Gables and Pride and Prejudice) rewritten by different Asian cultures, and one Chinese to Chinese story. Sooo... I'ma work on that as I review. I'm mostly familiar with a lot of stories about slavery that have been adapted into films and honestly that's not the narrative I want to push. Slavery was awful. Too much sadness, too much trauma; more importantly I'm writing about fiction.

Further Reading:

Little Women; the Facts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sBqqERMblo&t=3s

The Aviator's Wife

I started to read The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin and I became immediately frustrated with it. It was a moment where all I could think is, "Why am I so angry at this otherwise pretty forgettable novel?" When this happens, I like to take to reviews Goodreads to see if anyone else can name my frustrations for me. And there I found it. A list of books titled "The ______'s Wife."

I'm sick of historical fiction novels where the title is depicted as how the female main character is related to a male, usually a side character, in their life; The Aviator's Wife, The Painter's Daughter, The King's Mistress, The Doctor's Wife, The Emperor's Great-Grand Niece. Seriously, publishers, STOP.

And the Aviator-Painter-King-Doctor person is usually an ass. For example, in The Aviator's Wife, Charles is portrayed as an abusive cheater at the best of times and at the worst point it is implied that he might have had a hand in murdering their child. (This book is based on the events of Anne Marrow Lindbergh and I have done very little research on her life).

It also bothers me that there is a list of books on Goodreads titled "Famous People's Wives". Perhaps I'm reading into this title a little too far, but that sort of implies that the wives are neither famous nor people. Anne Marrow Lindbergh was the "it" girl of her time. It would be like writing a book about Angelina Jolie and titling it "The Actor's Ex-wife". That would be weird! It sounds like Jolie's one great accomplishment was that she was married to Brad Pitt. Same goes for Marrow Lindbergh. Was the best thing she ever did was get married to Charles Lindbergh, the ass hat aviator? No, it wasn't. So why do we allow titles to reduce women to a single event in their lives?