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2.5
Carrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable
ByPublisher Description
Acclaimed author Sarah Gerard turns her keen observational eye and cutting yet compassionate prose to the 2016 murder of her friend Carolyn Bush, examining the multi-faceted reasons for her death―personal and societal, avoidable and inevitable―with all the “insight and skill” ( Tampa Bay Times ) she brought to her lauded essay collection Sunshine State .
On the night of September 28, 2016, twenty-five-year-old Carolyn Bush was brutally stabbed to death in her New York City apartment by her roommate Render Stetson-Shanahan, leaving friends and family of both reeling. In life, Carolyn had been a gregarious, smart-mouthed aspiring poet, who had seemingly gotten along well with Render, a reserved art handler. Where had it gone so terribly wrong?
This is the question that has plagued acclaimed author Sarah Gerard and driven her obsessive pursuit to understand this horrifying tragedy. In Sarah’s exploration into Carolyn’s life and death, she spent thousands of hours interviewing her and Render’s friends and family, poring over court documents and news media, attending memorials for Carolyn, and Render’s trial, and reading obscure writings and internet posts from both parties. Even as she gleaned through this work a deeper understanding of Carolyn, her murderer, and the reasons for the crime, Sarah couldn’t help but turn her gaze to the greater forces that enabled it.
Sarah’s relentless instinct to follow a story and its characters to even their darkest ends makes this work at once a gripping work of true crime, a striking homage to Carolyn’s life, and an explosive excavation of a society in which murderous crimes committed by white men have become a disturbing norm.
On the night of September 28, 2016, twenty-five-year-old Carolyn Bush was brutally stabbed to death in her New York City apartment by her roommate Render Stetson-Shanahan, leaving friends and family of both reeling. In life, Carolyn had been a gregarious, smart-mouthed aspiring poet, who had seemingly gotten along well with Render, a reserved art handler. Where had it gone so terribly wrong?
This is the question that has plagued acclaimed author Sarah Gerard and driven her obsessive pursuit to understand this horrifying tragedy. In Sarah’s exploration into Carolyn’s life and death, she spent thousands of hours interviewing her and Render’s friends and family, poring over court documents and news media, attending memorials for Carolyn, and Render’s trial, and reading obscure writings and internet posts from both parties. Even as she gleaned through this work a deeper understanding of Carolyn, her murderer, and the reasons for the crime, Sarah couldn’t help but turn her gaze to the greater forces that enabled it.
Sarah’s relentless instinct to follow a story and its characters to even their darkest ends makes this work at once a gripping work of true crime, a striking homage to Carolyn’s life, and an explosive excavation of a society in which murderous crimes committed by white men have become a disturbing norm.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesCarrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable Reviews
2.5
“This book was all over the place… I felt like some chapters went off on weird tangents, or just could’ve been cut overall. I wouldn’t have made it through this book without the audiobook.”
“reading the quick introduction of this book at the book store, i was excited to read a new spin on true crime novels, but i didnt end up finishing the book and just skimmed through to the end. i extend my condolences to carolyn and her family and friends, but the descriptions of her just felt so distant in the book. yes, the author wasn’t close to carolyn, but there still lacked a sense of intimacy despite all the first hand accounts through interviews with carolyn’s close friends. im also still confused on the “obsession with the unthinkable” on the cover like…was it the astrology stuff or what cuz i feel like that was described in such an odd way like im really into astrology and it just felt like the author was trying to convey it in a relatable way to most people but, again, there was just this weird distance or gap between the pages and the reader, at least for me. i also felt like some of the history of carolyns life was repetitive or not necessarily what you’d think someone would include or emphasize in someone’s life story. like i watch the rotten mango podcast a lot and stephanie soo does such an amazing job conveying not just the life story of victims, she also paints such beautiful images of them through anecdotal stories. but at the end of the day, the opinions of those who knew carolyn closely matter most when it comes to a public portrayal of her story, so take this with a grain of salt”
“I just finally finished the book. Considering the title is the name of the victim and the authors friend (sort of), I expected more of the book to be on her and not end on all the shit about the guy who murdered her. It was a weird conversation with someone I don't know about stuff I had no idea about. Kind of reminds me of when my father-in-law talks about people like I should know them and their 12th cousin 5 times removed and how they once had a cow.
The story was, ultimately, tragic. However, reading this book confused me and felt more like someone's train of thought when they just needed to get out all the information that was in their thoughts but it doesn't all make sense and doesn't tie together very well and just makes you keep reading to hopefully wrap it all up in the end. Spoiler, it doesn't conclude in any way, shape or form. The conversation starts and ends and feels like I was on a blind date with someone who wasn't the person I was meant to be sitting with. I'm not sure what the writer was intending when she researched and put time and effort into this book. I'm not saying it was terrible but it just left me confused and trying to figure out who everyone was and what the story actually was. Maybe I just don't understand the writers style?!”
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