3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of unanswer questions?!, May 3, 2003
This review is from: Sins of the Mother (Mass Market Paperback)
I find this book very boring, it was mainly facts that we could read in magazines, we mostly heard people who knew Susan and David Smith and their little boys but not very much from the actual families. The book keep repeating himself but still it was a fast reading. It was boring to read about the police who was searching and keep saying the same thing. I would had like to know more about the feelings of Susan and David Smith and what their life was before. We know that Susan was depressed and want to die and bring her kids with her but after she think that was better if she didn't have her kids because she was in love with a guy at that moment and he had told her he didn't want to have a family allready made and he didn't feel he was mature enough to raise two youngs boys. How cruel and stupid of Susan to think she can get aways with it and that the man she love will come back to her because now she would be free, she won't have her littles boys anymore and she keept saying she love them so much but why she killed them for a guy? Really she really love her kids? Even David Smith, the father of her children said he would had keep them gladly, he would had take them if Susan felt it was too much for her. Susan just thought of herself when she killed her littles boys, she want to be free of them and start a new life with the man she was in love with but still she was depressed and depression and anxiety can change your state of mind and Susan I beleive was not in her right state of mind when she thought first of killing herself with her boys and after just killing her boys and be free from them, I do beleive she regret it but still how could a mother do that if she love her children so much like she said she did and people said Susan did?!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
still cant believe this happened, May 18, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Sins of the Mother (Mass Market Paperback)
The book was very well written, mostly from the point of view of the townspeople and Sheriff Wells, but not one sided at all. I was a little disappointed the story ended before the trial was even set.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Lot of Truths Left Unsaid, October 31, 2002
This review is from: Sins of the Mother (Mass Market Paperback)
I bought this book, hoping to get a glimpse into the mind of Susan Smith and to learn why she killed her children. Instead, I received a well-written account of the events that happened after Susan showed up on Shirley McCloud's doorstep.
The story was told from several points of view, from the investigators and the townspeople. What wasn't included was David or Susan's point of view. The author uses the in-laws to tell us how David was reacting both during the investigation and after his wife confessed. Through friends and investigators, we learn about Susan's tumultuous childhood, which included two suicide attempts.
She clearly had problems. Whether it was a full-blown mental illness that caused her to murder her children or a cold and calculated act so she could secure another relationship was never really touched upon. Included was her confession, which seemed phony and trite to me. The fact that the Smiths refused to see Mark Klaas and Jeanne Boylan, both of whom could have helped in this case, raised a major red flag with me. As a parent, I would've given them the five-star treatment.
The truth, which wasn't told in this book, was that David Smith knew his wife. Susan's family knew her for what she was and was more interested in protecting her than in finding those boys. That was the impression I got from reading this book.
Once Susan confessed to the murders, Eftimiades explains the mixed reations of the townspeople. Many were suspicious of her from the very beginning, but didn't want to get involved.
I expected the book to end with the coverage of her trial. Instead, it ended with Christian passages of forgiveness. I wasn't surprised to learn that several of the family members, including David, have made a buck off those killings.
Overall, I felt that Eftimiades could've done more investigating to make her book a believable and worthwhile read. Instead, I felt more empathy for the sheriff and the townspeople than I did for the Smiths' and their families. The coverup was too obvious and the ending way too short and disappointing.
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