tani reviewed on
Helpful Score: 1
This is the true story of seven kids in Florida, white, mostly middle class and loved by their parents, but who knew how to get their own way. They got together and killed the best friend of one, who was, indeed, a hateful bully and rapist, but the lack of human feeling of the seven is appalling. You also wonder why some of them, who had not been injured by the victim, let themselves go along at all. It was as if no one had any idea of the seriousness of what was being planned. Their stupidity is amazing, too, and they were speedily caught.
The most powerful writing comes at the end, after the account of how the seven were convicted and sentenced. Almost all their relatives "shrieked" that the sentences were unfair..."He wasn't the only one." "...She made a mistake, that's all." "She was a dumb kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
It ends, "They did not say this: My child is a murderer. I am sick with shame. When I think of what my child did to another human being, I want to die myself.
No one said that. Not one person."
A lesson for our day.
Good literature, it isn't, and there are some annoying inconsistencies, but the case is worth knowing about, and the ending is satisfying.
The most powerful writing comes at the end, after the account of how the seven were convicted and sentenced. Almost all their relatives "shrieked" that the sentences were unfair..."He wasn't the only one." "...She made a mistake, that's all." "She was a dumb kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
It ends, "They did not say this: My child is a murderer. I am sick with shame. When I think of what my child did to another human being, I want to die myself.
No one said that. Not one person."
A lesson for our day.
Good literature, it isn't, and there are some annoying inconsistencies, but the case is worth knowing about, and the ending is satisfying.
