“It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.”
Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City
Title: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
Author: Erik Larson
Genres: Non-fiction, History, True Crime
Length: 14 hrs, 58 mins
Published: February 11th, 2003
My Rating: ★★★
Read: 5/11/2024 – 5/16/2024
Review:
Though this book has caught my eye in bookstores, I went into it somewhat blindly. I knew it involved H.H. Holmes, but I didn’t anticipate everything else it included.
Rich with Chicago history, this book discusses the lives of H.H. Holmes and Daniel H. Burnham with a large focus on the World’s Fair.
Honestly… this was a weird mix with only a slight element connecting the two along with the overall setting of Chicago. While, yes, I did find the book interesting, I was also overwhelmed with the amount of information coming at me. This was very much two separate books with one being more built on fact and the other built on a lot of speculation.
Likes & Dislikes:
What I liked:
- Thorough.
- Interesting topics.
What I didn’t like:
- These were two different books that didn’t need to be put together.
- A lot of info dumping.
- Parts felt fictionalized.
Afterthoughts:
Most of this book put me in a weird place as a reader, both liking and disliking it simultaneously.
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