Edifying Survey

Accusations that author Peter Vronsky is misogynistic are legitimate. In his commentary surrounding this collection of female serial killers - including Black Widows, "Angels Of Death", Munchausen By Proxy murderers, and Killer Couples (among other subgroups) - Vronsky issues straight-up nasty descriptions of women & betrays a vehement hostility to feminists.
Fortunately, the majority of the book is straightforward biographical vignettes of specific cases used to illustrate the author's various categorizations (and Vronsky is quite good at those). The writing is nothing special.. but serviceable - and largely makes up for the questionable analysis.

As to presentation: reader Charles Constant demonstrates creditable narration skills.. but (similar to the text) doesn't provide anything particularly noteworthy. His diction, timbre, cadence, and timing are professional - and backed up by quality technical support from Tantor Audio sound engineers - but Constant occasionally settles into something of an indifferent tone and takes frequent noticeable deep breaths (avoid earbuds with this one). Bottom Line: while effective, any other reader could have delivered this book equally well.

"Adequate" presentation plus "Passable" book equals 7/10-star entertainment. As a 'Plus' selection, 'Female Serial Killers' was a great distraction for a couple of quiet afternoons.. but your Credit is spent better elsewhere should they ask for one.

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Refreshing

To those who say this is misogynistic, I strongly disagree. Peter gives the women their agency and beautifully explains how killers are the first victims in their lives, addressing that killers are generally made not born. For those who find this offensive, I'd ask why. Peter is refuting the concept that women only kill because of men, and that idea takes all power from women and makes them the puppets of men. This book refuses to do that. Women are humans just like men, with free agency. I also loved the tone in which he addressed the feminist defenders of these women, because again they tend to infantilize the women making them poor little babies who could never make a bad choice on their own! As a third wave feminist this boggles my mind, I personally like to think women can have reactions and thoughts of their own 🤷🏼‍♂️ Thank you Peter for another excellent and informative read. As a Canadian I'd also like to add on that KH's deal in the Mahaffey and French cases are disgusting and the court allowing her plea to stand after the tapes were discovered revictimized those poor families. Stand up for THOSE girls, as Peter did.

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2 people found this helpful

Bad people but descriptions tend misogynist

Lots of overlap. Tends to use misogynist terminology and almost sarcasm describing people who try to defend these women. I get it they are despicable people but having listened to other true crime there are way more denigrating terms and insults leveled at these offenders based on gender. It was really irritating every time the narrator would say "Bitch". Like really spat it out. It was striking how many insulting terms can be used for females because they seemed to trot most of them out for this poorly written narrative. Would not recommend this audio book.

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