The Thirty-Ninth Victim: A Memoir

The Thirty-Ninth Victim This is a haunting book. Once I started reading the book I couldn't put it down. Once I finished the book I couldn't stop thinking about it. I found the book to be well written and I certainly appreciated the courage it must have taken to write such a personal account of a family tragedy. This is a book about families and the mistakes parents make and the dire consequences those mistakes can have. This is a very powerful book. It is also a book that every parent should read. I found myself lost in the world of Mexico and I loved the section of the book about growing up in the countryside of Issaquah, Washington. I had always wondered what life in a big family would be like and the author's writing of that time was beautifully written. This family had such potential yet due to one family's member's very controlling personality it all came apart. I would highly recommend this book.

I was suprised that this book was so GREAT! If you want blood and guts and history on a pshyco man, this book isn't for you. If you are interested in the story of a girl that grew up in a large family and how that family reacted (to any family's worst nightmare) was so incredibly amazing, this is the book for you. I was so impressed with the authors ability to tell her story with great details and in the process make one think about thier own lives. The book made me laugh, cry, think, and wonder. After reading the book I wanted to know more about the people in my life and couldn't stop wondering what an impact I was having in my life of being a daughter, sister, wife and mother. This book inspired hours of great conversation between friends. A must read book. (A bonus if you've ever lived in Seattle or Mexico City because the locations are so easy to imagine).

I have just put down Thirty-Ninth Victim, having read the last 100 pages in a single sitting. Arleen Williams impresses me. She honors her sister Maureen with this memoir. She presents an emotional time-line. She paints complex portraits of her family members with details that make me feel as if I am alongside her. She accomplishes an amazing thing. She brings her baby sister to life again.

Ms. Williams has written a powerful memoir. Her courage and writing skill gain momentum like a freight train.

Oh, my, what a disturbing memoir this is. Not solely because of the murder of the author's sister by the infamous Green River Killer -- which would be plenty creepy enough for any true crime book, or even murder mystery -- but because Arleen Williams presents us with an achingly honest look at absence, longing, and denial within a family waiting years for what the media dismissively calls closure. What struck me most about this story is that, unlike so many books about particularly horrific crimes, the victim here comes alive on the page. Not as yet another in an almost unimaginably long list of murdered women (so long, in fact, that it sparked the nationwide Take Back the Night rallies) or as merely an object to be acted upon with violence, but as a vibrant light abruptly, inconceivably snuffed. And as part of a family so deeply attached to its own self-image as normal that even a daughter's disappearance is allowed to disrupt it. Powerful stuff. Chilling. (And yes, for you fans of close-up crime recreations, there was one scene that I'm quite positive is going to give me nightmares for years to come.)