Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod

Rating:
Summary: a great book about real lives
Review: What is wrong with some of these readers?? Listen to the professionals:

Boston Globe: "Spellbinding...offers what so many news accounts could not -- a coherent context."

New York Times Book Review: "Flook is fearless...She writes shrewdly and often with exquisite care about the opposite worlds that were both nurturing and destructive to Christa Worthington."

Library Journal: "This is true crime with heart."

Kirkus Reviews: "Chilling, edgy."

Elle: "A chilling and compelling drama."


I really love this book because the writer really cared about Christa and really loved her town.

Rating:
Summary: Very difficult to read...
Review: While I am an avid reader and enjoy non-fiction, I found this book to be extremely difficult to get through. Flook's writing is tedious and includes so many trivial details that I found myself wishing the book would end around page 50. Christa Worthington's story could be a compelling read, but any excitement is lost in the minutiae. If you are looking for a true-crime book that will grab you at the beginning, entwine you in the story, and keep you interested throughout, this is not it.

Rating:
Summary: A Huge Disappointment
Review: While there were some bits of wonderful folklore and history about the towns of Truro and Provincetown--both favorites of mine--I agree with a number of readers who were turned off by the poor quality of the writing and its overwrought tone. I also found that the author's repeated attempts to draw the reader to parallels between herself and Christa Worthington rang false and forced, it's lazy writing. Additionally, and adding to the poor quality was the numerous occasions of repeated information, either by using the same exact sentence, same quote, or turn of phrase. It was so prevalent, I can't believe the editor or author didn't realize this was the case, and it's too sloppy to have been done intentionally, there would be no purpose served in having the bits repeated. I held a morbid interest in this story due to my attachment to the place it discussed, I'm not a huge fan of the genre, but I've read enough of this ilk to know that this was hardly a stellar example of true crime reporting. Really a shame, as there is an abundance of wonderful history to be told, and so many colorful characters, that, on top of the intrinsic human nature to be interested in unsolved murders of the rich and even marginally famous, left me surprised at how the author failed each time to take advantage and create any interest. She seemed more obsessed with mimicking Christa Worthington's flowery writing style, again, failing miserably and often completely distracting the reader from the story with an inappropriately used adjective or metaphor. I actually skipped whole paragraphs and sections because I couldn't bear to read their content.