Sudden Fury

Rating:
Summary: Excuses, excuses, excuses
Review: As is typical of many of the current trough of poorly written "true crime" books, Sudden Fury begins by almost immediately letting you know "who done it". After that, it becomes just a dry recitation of the facts, including the background of the "abused" murderer. It leaves the reader wondering why she would bother writing a book when a simple magazine article could give almost as much factual information.

Of course, in the author's view, the victims' requiring their adopted sons to make decent grades, not steal, and obey society's rules is "abuse". The constant whining theme of "he just needs love" conveniently whitewashes the fact that the parents, though flawed themselves, adopted the children with the idea of doing just that, and the boys continually and willfully did wrong, often for no purpose other than to just show they could. Although it sounds like the father had a bad temper, even a patient parent would eventually get sick and tired of the antisocial behavior they were dealing with from two kids who, typical of adopted children, wanted "unconditional love" and continually pushed the limits to make their adoptive parents "prove" their love. (If you believe in "unconditional love", try cheating on or stealing from your spouse repeatedly, and then demand it.) These kids had free will, a great 2nd chance in life, and they stupidly threw it away with their selfish and sociopathic behavior. Not once does the author bring up the topic of "evil" or even mention in passing that perhaps if the young lad were so unhappy, he should have asked someone at his school to get him removed from that house.

Other incidents of "abuse" the author describes are: 1. not paying for his drivers ed class, and not letting him drive unless he passed all his courses. (Oh the horror!) 2. discouraging him from dating any girl more than once at 15-16 years of age to avoid problems with sex. (with over 60% of births now out of wedlock, not such an unwise idea at his age, and certainly not "abuse") 3. The father getting angry the night of the murder because the boy and his friends had ruined a computer disk containing countless hours of his father's accounting work and programming. I wonder what the author would say to her 16 y/o child if he had trashed her only copy of this book's manuscript after months of work. I'm sure she'd just smile and buy him an ice cream cone.

This "boy" will be getting out of jail before he's 30, probably, and god help the people who come accross him then. Unlike the theory of one person in the book, his problem wasn't his adoptive parents, it was his inability to understand that being adopted and having a tough childhood isn't carte blanche to vicimize the rest of us. If you want to prevent tradgedies like this, start making people who recklessly have children out of wedlock pay the price.

The victims' families should sue the author for libel, if they already haven't. Though perhaps overly rigid and imperfect, they were trying to help these kids, and the author used primarly the MURDERER'S point of view and that of their INSTITUTIONALIZED CRIMINAL older son to assasinate their character.

The final fact is, this "boy" CHOSE to murder two people because he didn't like their rules and "felt bad". Society is better off without such people and their excuse mongers as well.

Rating:
Summary: Excuses, excuses, excuses
Review: As is typical of many of the current trough of poorly written "true crime" books, Sudden Fury begins by almost immediately letting you know "who done it". After that, it becomes just a dry recitation of the facts, including the background of the "abused" murderer. It leaves the reader wondering why she would bother writing a book when a simple magazine article could give almost as much factual information.

Of course, in the author's view, the victims' requiring their adopted sons to make decent grades, not steal, and obey society's rules is "abuse". The constant whining theme of "he just needs love" conveniently whitewashes the fact that the parents, though flawed themselves, adopted the children with the idea of doing just that, and the boys continually and willfully did wrong, often for no purpose other than to just show they could. Although it sounds like the father had a bad temper, even a patient parent would eventually get sick and tired of the antisocial behavior they were dealing with from two kids who, typical of adopted children, wanted "unconditional love" and continually pushed the limits to make their adoptive parents "prove" their love. (If you believe in "unconditional love", try cheating on or stealing from your spouse repeatedly, and then demand it.) These kids had free will, a great 2nd chance in life, and they stupidly threw it away with their selfish and sociopathic behavior. Not once does the author bring up the topic of "evil" or even mention in passing that perhaps if the young lad were so unhappy, he should have asked someone at his school to get him removed from that house.

Other incidents of "abuse" the author describes are: 1. not paying for his drivers ed class, and not letting him drive unless he passed all his courses. (Oh the horror!) 2. discouraging him from dating any girl more than once at 15-16 years of age to avoid problems with sex. (with over 60% of births now out of wedlock, not such an unwise idea at his age, and certainly not "abuse") 3. The father getting angry the night of the murder because the boy and his friends had ruined a computer disk containing countless hours of his father's accounting work and programming. I wonder what the author would say to her 16 y/o child if he had trashed her only copy of this book's manuscript after months of work. I'm sure she'd just smile and buy him an ice cream cone.

This "boy" will be getting out of jail before he's 30, probably, and god help the people who come accross him then. Unlike the theory of one person in the book, his problem wasn't his adoptive parents, it was his inability to understand that being adopted and having a tough childhood isn't carte blanche to vicimize the rest of us. If you want to prevent tradgedies like this, start making people who recklessly have children out of wedlock pay the price.

The victims' families should sue the author for libel, if they already haven't. Though perhaps overly rigid and imperfect, they were trying to help these kids, and the author used primarly the MURDERER'S point of view and that of their INSTITUTIONALIZED CRIMINAL older son to assasinate their character.

The final fact is, this "boy" CHOSE to murder two people because he didn't like their rules and "felt bad". Society is better off without such people and their excuse mongers as well.

Rating:
Summary: Excuses, excuses, excuses
Review: As is typical of many of the current trough of poorly written "true crime" books, Sudden Fury begins by almost immediately letting you know "who done it". After that, it becomes just a dry recitation of the facts, including the background of the "abused" murderer. It leaves the reader wondering why she would bother writing a book when a simple magazine article could give almost as much factual information.

Of course, in the author's view, the victims' requiring their adopted sons to make decent grades, not steal, and obey society's rules is "abuse". The constant whining theme of "he just needs love" conveniently whitewashes the fact that the parents, though flawed themselves, adopted the children with the idea of doing just that, and the boys continually and willfully did wrong, often for no purpose other than to just show they could. Although it sounds like the father had a bad temper, even a patient parent would eventually get sick and tired of the antisocial behavior they were dealing with from two kids who, typical of adopted children, wanted "unconditional love" and continually pushed the limits to make their adoptive parents "prove" their love. (If you believe in "unconditional love", try cheating on or stealing from your spouse repeatedly, and then demand it.) These kids had free will, a great 2nd chance in life, and they stupidly threw it away with their selfish and sociopathic behavior. Not once does the author bring up the topic of "evil" or even mention in passing that perhaps if the young lad were so unhappy, he should have asked someone at his school to get him removed from that house.

Other incidents of "abuse" the author describes are: 1. not paying for his drivers ed class, and not letting him drive unless he passed all his courses. (Oh the horror!) 2. discouraging him from dating any girl more than once at 15-16 years of age to avoid problems with sex. (with over 60% of births now out of wedlock, not such an unwise idea at his age, and certainly not "abuse") 3. The father getting angry the night of the murder because the boy and his friends had ruined a computer disk containing countless hours of his father's accounting work and programming. I wonder what the author would say to her 16 y/o child if he had trashed her only copy of this book's manuscript after months of work. I'm sure she'd just smile and buy him an ice cream cone.

This "boy" will be getting out of jail before he's 30, probably, and god help the people who come accross him then. Unlike the theory of one person in the book, his problem wasn't his adoptive parents, it was his inability to understand that being adopted and having a tough childhood isn't carte blanche to vicimize the rest of us. If you want to prevent tradgedies like this, start making people who recklessly have children out of wedlock pay the price.

The victims' families should sue the author for libel, if they already haven't. Though perhaps overly rigid and imperfect, they were trying to help these kids, and the author used primarly the MURDERER'S point of view and that of their INSTITUTIONALIZED CRIMINAL older son to assasinate their character.

The final fact is, this "boy" CHOSE to murder two people because he didn't like their rules and "felt bad". Society is better off without such people and their excuse mongers as well.

Rating:
Summary: The review is very factual
Review: Coming from someone who grew up in the neighborhood where this crime happened and knowing the murderer, I found this book chilling. For those of us who knew him, Larry was anything but antisocial. He tried hard to please. I think the book depicted the case in very factual details. It's difficult to read even now many years after the incident.

Rating:
Summary: an emotional whodunnit
Review: Not your typical whodunnit, Sudden Fury is one of the better true crime books I've read. It's an emotional whodunnit of sorts, a chilling account of a boy abandoned into the foster care system who grew up to be violent. I especially liked the alternating story lines--the present-tense crime investigation alternating with the child's upbringing. I found the writing style objective in a way that made it compelling. The tragedy, I felt, was heightened by the fact the adoptive parents were so well meaning, however misguided they may have been. I felt the author struck a delicate balance between blaming the adoptive parents, the boy and the social welfare system for the horrible outcome. While depressing, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the psychology of violence.