Customer Reviews

Love You Madly: The True Story of a Small-town Girl, the Young Men She Seduced, and the Murder of her Mother

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I read true crime by this publisher frequently and never noticed this many errors in editing before.

I hate to penalize the author for this and I would have waited until I finished reading the entire book before reviewing it if this didn't bug me so much...and given more stars, too, because (so far) the author is doing a great job. But the editing actually made me look to see if it was self published.

The author is merely an opportunist -- he found a story and ran with it. Nothing wrong in that except that he isn't a writer. Any drama in this tale comes entirely from the substance of the story and not the style of writing. There's no flair, no presence, no penetrating subjective angles to draw one in -- he merely writes very much from the outside with very little to make characters spring off the page. It's lacking in dimensions and the players remain flat on a boring canvass as bleak as the Alaskan setting.
The author clearly doesn't have what it takes to be a writer -- he tabulates the facts and publishes a book and gets there before anyone else, probably discouraging anyone with ability to make a better job of it.
Fleeman manages to pull off the impossible -- make an interesting story uninteresting. While the chill of Alaska sometimes comes across the same cannot be said for the characters who are as remote at the end of the book as they are at the beginning. A book has as its prime objective to be gripping so this one falls at the first fence. It was easy to put down which I did many times but felt that since I'd bought it(with regrets) I was obligated to finish it.
Not recommended.

Sixteen year old Rachelle Waterman may have felt she was living at the ends of the earth in Craig, Alaska, but her life really wasn't that much different than other American teenagers. She spent her days in the high school classrooms, afternoons dedicated to sports and band practice, and her evenings rebelling against parental restrictions.

On the other hand, Rachelle was a little bit ahead of her time. In 2004, blogging wasn't yet a catch phrase, but Rachelle was broadcasting her complaints to the world via LiveJournal.

When her mother, Lauri Waterman was discovered beaten to death on a remote Alaskan road, Rachelle had but one thing to say: "Just to let everyone know, my mother was murdered."

Despite rumors of a philandering husband, police immediately zeroed in on Rachelle and her boyfriend Jason Arrant. On an island with only 1500 residents, everyone was privy to the fact that Lauri did not approve of her daughter's relationship with the grown man who still lived with his parents and seemed to have no ambition for his future. Couple the sloth boyfriend with Rachelle's recent penchant for wearing all black, all time and you've got a recipe for a constant bickering between mother and daughter.

But could the finish product really be a mother murdered at her daughter's demand?

Police really believed so and they were not going to rest easy until Rachelle was behind bars. With no physical evidence and an airtight alibi, that wasn't going to be so easy. But, considering there's not a lot to do in Alaska (especially during those brutally long winter months), they had plenty of time to question witnesses until they heard what they wanted - Rachelle was the mastermind.

Would it be enough?

Author Michael Fleeman follows the case of Rachelle Waterman from that fateful day in November 2004 until the final twist in February 2011 in his new true crime Love You Madly: The True Story of a Small-town Girl, the Young Men She Seduced, and the Murder of her Mother.

I was disappointed that more background information wasn't provided for members of Waterman family. It kept me from really forming a good feel for Lauri as a mother and a victim and, in turn, while I formed an opinion about Rachelle, it wasn't really laced with the emotion I get from other books. Yet, at the same time, I couldn't stop reading. It was an interesting, thought-provoking case filled with questionable investigative tactics and surprising twists.

Love You Madly is one to your reading list, just maybe not at the top.

It was pretty obvious to me that the author interviewed absolutely no one but law enforcement. Except some Alaskan scenery and a few words from Rachelle's blog, every word was a reprint of police interviews or trial transcripts.

Here's the story: 16 yr old Rachelle, living with her parents in a desolate town that she refers to as, "Hell, Alaska", starts wearing black and tells her parents she's Wiccan. She meets 2 twenty something losers, whom no girl has ever given the time of day to.

Rachelle constantly cries to them that her mother is abusing her: pushing her down stairs, hitting her and leaving bruises. We are left in the dark as to whether any of her claims were true or just typical teenage angst. (As in most true crime books, the victim was perfect in every way and never even killed a fly) Like any 2 besotted young men (she had sexual encounters with both)they plead with her to tell them what they could do to help. Whichever one came up with murder is never really made clear.

Remember, all this was gleaned from police interviews. I'd like to get some feel for some of the characters in a true crime book...absolutely none here. The NBC Dateline version HAS to be more interesting and you can probably watch it on YOUTUBE, for FREE!

As a side note: Very funny comment in the book on the ratio of males to females in Alaska being so great..as one woman put it, "The odds are good but the goods are odd".

starts off interesting enough but get kind of bogged down in spots. not top of the line true crime like Capote or Rule but a decent read.

if you like to read this kind of novels, I really recomend you this book, it is very interesting you will read it very fast.