bookgirl

This book is a total waste of time. It is a totally amateur attempt at true crime. Badly written and badly narrated.

3 people found this helpful

Joel's story and a lot of serial killer info

This was more an overall serial killer book than a book specific to Joel Rifkin. It is more info about serial killer research than it is about this killer and his victims. If you want to know who Joel Rifkin killed and how, you can get that in the first couple chapters. If you want to learn about serial killer research in general then you can listen to the rest of the book. For those who have a great interest in serial killers and profiling, you are probably familiar with much of the information. Joel Rifkin's story should have just been included in another book on serial killers instead of adding all the fluff to this book and calling it his true story. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

2 people found this helpful

Started off good but then went a bit off the rails

I was wondering how a book about Joel Rifkin could possibly be 3.5 hrs long and as it turns out this book has a bit of filler in it; stuff that deviates quite a bit from Rifkin's story. It starts off really strong - the entire portion about Joel Rifkin (his origins, his crimes, his trial, and his incarceration) was perfectly written and very informative. But then the book went a bit off the rails for me. I tuned out right around the time that the authors started listing loads of random adoptees and the crimes they committed. I found that entire portion to be largely unrelated to the preceding Rifkin story/of no further value to the story, disjointed, and frankly irresponsible. As a psychiatrist who is both personally and professionally very familiar with adoption I have to say that I found that entire section re: adoptees and crime to be nothing more than tasteless voyeurism and not indicative of any meaningful trends or information pertaining to actual outcomes in adoption. One might as well list all the crimes committed by women with red hair - just because you can compile a list doesn't mean you've proven any actual trend. CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION and adoption in general is a really wonderful way to build a family. I wouldn't have gone down that road if I were the author of this book. This book would have been more enjoyable if it had just stuck to the fascinating subject matter at hand - Joel Rifkin. The same can be said about the book's ramblings regarding solitary confinement in US prisons...that's a huge topic in and of itself and randomly listing famous solitary confinement cases in this book didn't do any justice to the need for prison reform. If you're not going to delve into an important topic 100% it's best not to go there at all. So, overall this book was a mixed bag for me.Thank you to the author the narrator and audiobook boom for the complimentary copy of the story in exchange for this fair and unbiased review.

1 person found this helpful

Great Read

Loved it, told me alot about the case I never new. glad I bought it.

Interesting but towards the end it become overwhel

There are a lot of interesting facts as the author goes through Joel as a serial killer and his defense of doing it because of adoption. He gives you facts based on killers who are adopted and one of the defenses he used in this case but as you will find in Joel’s case beside being bullied from his peers he had a very loving home. He also gives other defenses he used for his reason to kill.

The narrator really bought this audio to life. He gave emotion when he needed to but for the most part he just does it in his normal voice much like someone doing the news which is the way it should be. There are no background noises, no repeating of words, no volume changes just a clean clear audio that I totally enjoyed. If any breaks were taken I could not tell, he gave the right pause for the words to sink. He lays it out and lets the listener judge what their emotion will be.

I usually really enjoy this author’s true crime but here he goes into the names of the adopted people who have killed but gives little information. After a while it becomes overwhelming and your mind goes off on its own. It is interesting to see how many adopted people have killed but just not enough information is given to hold your attention. The first part of this book is outstanding and I totally enjoyed it.

Interesting Tale of a Killer

This was an interesting listen. Although the book is a three and a half hour listen only about an hour of it is directly about Joel Rifkin. The rest is about the other aspects of the case. Who was involved, classifying, victims, etc. I don't mind hearing all about these other aspects but thought most of the narration would be about Rifkin. Not that I wanted exact details about what he did to his victims but maybe have the other information given woven into Rifkin's story instead of adding it at the end, making the listener feel a bit cheated. If you like true crime/serial killer stories then you will enjoy this, I just think it would have flowed better if everything had been properly integrated.

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Darkly fascinating...

Excellent narration, like listening to 48 Hours or similar programming. Very well done. Quick listen, an interesting content. While the first half of the book was about Rifkin, it was more of a segue in to a larger discussion about serial killers and the death penalty. If you're looking for the true story of Joel Rifkin, this probably won't satisfy you. But if you're looking for a good book about the mind of serial killers using Joel Rifkin's background as supporting material, then this may prove informative. ***This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.***

A Good read / listen

The true crime story of the self confessed serial killer Joel Rifkin. A well written and documented history of Joel Rifkin. Narration is good clear and precise.
Full of facts + additional information regarding serial killers in general.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

A must listen for fans of true crime.

Truly strange true crime novel !!

This is a great story, that keeps you interested. The narration is focused and committed to the material. The author is very talented, I look forward to another novel

Maybe a title change

Book was really less about Joel Rifkin and more about serial killers as a whole. Joel's part was over quickly and went into others. Still interesting but I don't know if I would classify it as a specific Joel Rifkin book.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review