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SkywardStorytelling

Skye - she/they đŸ©·đŸ’œđŸ’™ I'm just a girl who likes reading about fictional horrors to escape the real ones 💅

281 points

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Level 3
My Taste
The Last Days of Jack Sparks
When the Wolf Comes Home
Nightwatch on the Hinterlands (The Weep, #1)
Victorian Psycho
Of Monsters and Mainframes
Reading...
December ParkNestlingsThe Book of AccidentsHorror Movie

Post from the Queer Horror forum

1h
  • Yeehaw! Let's go!

    I've had a ton of these on my tbr for AGES, so now I have an excuse to prioritize them! What's everyone starting with? I think my first pick is The Salt Grows Heavy!

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  • SkywardStorytelling wants to read...

    3h
    Herculine

    Herculine

    Grace Byron

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    SkywardStorytelling commented on a post

    3h
  • When the Wolf Comes Home
    Thoughts from 100% - Ending Interpretation
    spoilers

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  • SkywardStorytelling wants to read...

    4h
    Walking Practice

    Walking Practice

    Dolki Min

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    SkywardStorytelling finished reading and left a rating...

    11h
  • Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers
    Oct 31, 2025
    4.0
    Enjoyment: 4.0Quality: 4.5Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.0
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    đŸ”Ș

    Buckle up, babes - this one is a SAGA.

    I'm really curious how long it took Caroline Fraser to write this - not only is it a whopping 16 hour audiobook, but the level of detail included on all three subjects is astonishing.

    Murderland is best described as three connected stories braided together around a single thesis - that the absolutely bonkers levels of heavy metals and toxins pumped into the environment by the smelting industry is a distinct but underexplored factor in the development of history's most recognizable serial killers and contributed to a higher rate of violent crime in the US in general during the period between the 1920s and the phasing out of leaded gasoline in 1992. The third story is Fraser's own biography and her experiences living through the height of the serial killer era, particularly when Ted Bundy is killing women basically in her backyard.

    I will admit that it took me a long time to "get" this book - if you aren't paying attention (which I was trying really hard to do but audiobooks are hard for my brain sometimes) it can seem like an endless slog through the lurid details of the 70s serial killer craze and the violence of the times - rapes, domestic violence, endless horrific car accidents. It's rough, I'm not going to lie to you. But Fraser is using the horrors to push us toward her ultimate point - corporations don't care about us, and they have been allowed to flood our world with poison and build projects that are proven to be violently unsafe (looking at you, Mercer Island Bridge 👀) with impunity for decades and these societal issues are partially the consequences of this disgusting level of indifference to human life and health.

    The thing that I appreciated the most was Fraser's consistent acknowledgement of nuance - she doesn't claim that heavy metals are the ONLY factor that led to these monstrous crimes, nor does she imply that this factor allows perpetrators to escape accountability. I had mixed feelings about how much the book lingers on Ted Bundy (haven't we talked about this dickhead enough??) but he is a really good example of what Caroline is talking about, and his crimes are enmeshed in the history of true crime that she follows to make her point.

    Overall, this was a really interesting entry in the "environmental true crime" (thank you person who commented on my last update for this term and also for the shrimp trauma 🩐) genre, but it's by no means light reading.

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    17h
  • Dracula
    Thoughts from 58%
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