Savage Appetites, Rachel Monroe
Savage Appetites, Rachel Monroe
2 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Savage Appetites
Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession

Author: Rachel Monroe

Narrator: Jayme Mattler

Unabridged: 8 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/20/2019


Synopsis

A “necessary and brilliant” (NPR) exploration of our cultural fascination with true crime told through four “enthralling” (The New York Times Book Review) narratives of obsession.

In Savage Appetites, Rachel Monroe links four criminal roles—Detective, Victim, Defender, and Killer—to four true stories about women driven by obsession. From a frustrated and brilliant heiress crafting crime-scene dollhouses to a young woman who became part of a Manson victim’s family, from a landscape architect in love with a convicted murderer to a Columbine fangirl who planned her own mass shooting, these women are alternately mesmerizing, horrifying, and sympathetic. A revealing study of women’s complicated relationship with true crime and the fear and desire it can inspire, together these stories provide a window into why many women are drawn to crime narratives—even as they also recoil from them.

Monroe uses these four cases to trace the history of American crime through the growth of forensic science, the evolving role of victims, the Satanic Panic, the rise of online detectives, and the long shadow of the Columbine shooting. Combining personal narrative, reportage, and a sociological examination of violence and media in the 20th and 21st centuries, Savage Appetites is a “corrective to the genre it interrogates” (The New Statesman), scrupulously exploring empathy, justice, and the persistent appeal of crime.

About Rachel Monroe

Rachel Monroe is a writer and volunteer firefighter living in Marfa, Texas. Her work has appeared in The Best American Travel Writing 2018, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jessica on April 16, 2019

Let's just start with all the ways in which I have specific, subjective opinions about this book. I hate the true crime trend. I specifically hate the fandoms that have grown up around true crime. For me, it is exploitative and disrespectful, it turns real problems and pain into entertainment, and i......more

Goodreads review by Johann (jobis89) on July 05, 2021

I thought this was fantastic. More of a “why do women love true crime so much?” and four stories of women and their obsession, as opposed to a straight up true crime book. Unique!......more

Goodreads review by Mara on October 10, 2021

4.5 stars - I've found myself thinking about this book days after I finished it, so I've bumped this from 4 stars to 4.5. I really like the case study approach this author takes to trying to explore the question of women's fascination with true crime. She explores four different women in roles of th......more

Goodreads review by Valerity (Val) on July 06, 2019

Rachel Monroe’s book delves into the issue of women and their obsession with true crime. As if that’s always a bad thing. This is basically divided into four sections relating four different cases the author examines as separate cases to consider as studies. I was already familiar with the one of th......more

Goodreads review by Blair on January 31, 2021

Rachel Monroe writes so wonderfully and fluidly; I sat down to read a bit of this on my lunch hour and had made my way through a full third of the book before I knew it. Savage Appetites is composed of, as the subtitle says, ‘true stories of women, crime, and obsession’ – it’s not a true crime book......more