Rach's Reading Club

by Choconut

Rated: E · Message Forum · Activity · #2261482

Where all you have to do is read books to receive awesome prizes.

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Nov 8, 2025 at 9:30pm

#3768416

October book #2

by Jeff

American Black Widow
by Gregg Olsen | 326 pages

Apparently, the story of Sharon Nelson Harrelson was also told on an episode of the Oxygen channel's Black Widow Murders show in 2022 and this might be one of the cases where the show was preferable to the book. This book just went on way too long with Sharon's backstory and trying to provide every possible detail. It almost read like the author was particularly proud of how hard they worked on researching the book and then decided to include everything they found out, rather than editing. I was nearly one-quarter of the way into the book and still learning about Sharon's upbringing and relationship with her parents, her first husband, etc.

Add to that the fact that the subject of the story killed two husbands and got caught, it seemed kind of tame by today's "black widow" standards. I found myself wondering if this worked better as an episode of the Oxygen show referenced above, but also just wasn't invested enough in the subject herself or the circumstances of her case to make me really feel like pursuing it and experiencing it again was necessary.

Overall, I admit that I may not be the target audience for true crime, but I feel like there are more compelling true crime sagas out there.

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October book #2 · 11-08-25 9:30pm
by Jeff

Re: October book #2 · 11-16-25 5:05am
by Choconut