She Kills Me

 Book 26 of my 2021 Reading Challenge

She Kills Me: The True Stories of History's Deadliest Women

by Jennifer Wright

Summary (via Goodreads)

published 2021

A powerful collection of stories about women who murdered—for revenge, for love, and even for pleasure—rife with historical details that will have any true crime junkie on the edge of their seat.

In every tragic story, men are expected to be the killers. There are countless studies and works of art made about male violence. However, when women are featured in stories about murder, they are rarely portrayed as predators. They’re the prey. This common dynamic is one of the reasons that women are so enthralled by female murderers. They do the things that women aren’t supposed to do and live the lives that women aren’t supposed to want: lives that are impulsive and angry and messy and inconvenient. Maybe we feel bad about loving them, but we eat it up just the same. 

Residing squarely in the middle of a Venn diagram of feminism and true crime, She Kills Me tells the story of 40 women who murdered out of necessity, fear, revenge, and even for pleasure.

First Impressions/Judging a Book by Its Cover

I chose this book from NetGalley (full disclaimer below) because of the title and cover art.  Looking at the description, this book has a lot of potential for me to enjoy it.  It's true crime with an unusual slant (women who kill) and covering so many different women makes it likely there will be crimes I haven't heard of.

My Opinion

4 stars

**I received an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley and would like to thank the author and/or publisher for the opportunity to read and honestly review it**

Looking at my first impression, I was correct in my assumptions.  What you expect going into the read is the minimum of what you'll get; there were many unusual extras that enhanced my reading as well.

The book really leaned into the point that women can be just as evil as men.  Historically, women were able to get away with murder because men underestimated their mental capacities and physical strength or they assumed they must have had a good reason to commit the act (but it wasn't all roses since they could be accused of witchcraft or sent to an asylum because their husband didn't like them).  Now we realize women can be just as conniving as men.  To quote the author, "Yeah, that's right, women can be horrible people, too."  Yay feminism!

The book was divided into sections: psychos, poisoners, family, black widows, scorned, mercenaries, royalty, warriors, and avengers.  There were also summaries at the end of each section with extra information about the topic, such as how to spot a psychopath, the timeline of women's independence, and quotations from men throughout history about women in power (spoiler alert: they've never liked it).  

There were trigger warnings at the beginning of each story so you could skip ones involving children, sexual assault, etc. if you wanted to.  Each story ended with the citations of the author's research (instead of one big chunk at the end like usual) so if you wanted to know more about a specific case you could find the information easily and immediately.  

I wavered between 3 and 4 stars but rounded up because of the extra details mentioned above that I haven't seen before.  Even if everything stayed pretty short and superficial in terms of content, it was well-researched and the majority of the information was new to me.  It was entertaining  and funny without mocking or being disrespectful.

Quote from the Book

Note: I read an ARC so this quote may be altered in the final version

" "The world would be so much gentler if it was run by women." - A Man Who Never Read a History Book "