Having had this book suggested by a friend, I had high expectations for it, which unfortunately haven’t been met.

My biggest issue with the book was the fact that it only picked up pace and became more or less captivating 150-170 pages into the story. Compared with the total length of the book, being about 320 pages long, that’s a bit much of an “intro” in my opinion.

If I were to skip ahead to the 2nd half of the book, where it finally got interesting, it can definitely be said that it offered a compelling character study of the two men convicted of murder. Most importantly though, it shed light upon the American system touching on the topic of juridical judgements of death penalty for crimes. Even though the story isn’t intentionally built around this topic, it nevertheless presented some historical background, as well as the medical/psychological processes surrounding such judgements. 

All in all, I would say that it wasn’t a complete waste of time, if you tackle it with the thought in mind that you have to fight your way through the first half 😉

★★★☆☆ (3/5)