Monday, February 26, 2018

Small Sacrifices

Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule
1988
Weight: 8 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating


I was working at Waldenbooks in early 2000 when a woman came in to the store proclaiming desperately that this book was her life and that I had to read it to understand her.  I had never met her before, but she pressed a copy of the book into my hands and then bought a copy for her attorney.  She was incredibly emotional and high-strung. 

I bought the book without paying much attention to it.  I was curious, but I was uncomfortable because I knew that Ann Rule was THE true crime author of the time.  I got home and saw the book was about a woman who tried to murder her children, successfully killing one.  I was a teenager.  I was not so sure I should have bought the book.  I hoped that the woman was just a little insane and mostly just a liar.  I put the book away and every time I picked it up I would just put it right back away.  I wondered who the woman thought she was.  The murderer, the child, the prosecution--couldn't be--she said she had an attorney.  Was she just attention-seeking?  I will never know. 

I finally read it this year.  We just moved into a new house, and we have less space even though we like this house better than the last.  We are purging a lot.  I am, of course, still trying to read and let go of all of these books.  There are still SO many.  I knew I wanted to let this one go because of my feelings about true crime and because of all the thoughts it brought up every time I came across it.


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