Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Becker

I heard about Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Becker on a podcast and I was intrigued by the premise, so I ordered it from the library and read the whole thing on the way to Iowa for Thanksgiving. I was absolutely riveted. 

First of all, this is a novel. It's a novel about true crime, but it's a novel, nonetheless. It references actual occurrences in the world, but it's not real!  I read a handful of Goodreads reviews that said this was shelved in non-fiction and I don't know how that would happen since novel is on the cover, but it is what it is, I suppose.

A girl goes missing in a Washington, D.C. suburb. A television producer flies in from California and starts a reality show following the girl's family around in the immediate aftermath of her disappearance. This book is the story of what happens in the investigation and the television show, told in the style of a documentary where each page is the dialogue of what people would be saying if you were watching that show. I thought this format was perfect. I also appreciated that the author put in parenthesis who the person was after their name each time they spoke. It made for less flipping back to the list of characters at the beginning of the book.

I thought it was smartly done. I know that I would probably watch a reality show that was following a crime in real time, even if I had some serious ethical considerations about doing so. I thought that the ripple effects of the television show that Sweren-Becker created felt true to what would happen. I thought the social commentary was spot-on.

I was also really invested in what happened to this girl. How could she literally just disappear so quickly? The internal story was mesmerizing.  

I have a few quibbles, but if this format would be appealing to you and you think about the social ramifications of true crime as a genre, I would highly recommend this one. 4.5/5 stars

This is just an example of how the book is formatted. (page 12)

Lines of note:
Casey is a wolf in wolf's clothing. (page 28)
I'd never heard this phrase before and I laughed really hard when I read it. My husband tells me it's a common phrase. Have you heard it before?

There's nothing like getting a teenager trapped in a car, it's the only place you can really bond with them. No eye contact, some music on the radio, a little boredom - your kids just crack wide open. (page 109)
I 100% always try to have difficult conversations in the car because of the no eye contact thing. 

Hat mentions:
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