Filled with unnecessary details and goes off on so many tangents that ...
581795
Awful and could be much more informative considering its length. Filled with unnecessary details and goes off on so many tangents that its hard to understand what information is trying to be taught. I enjoy American studies but this is the most painful book I have ever had to read for a class.
3562691
I hated the fact the the writer continuously jumped around too much. The book lacks flow. He gives way too much information on each individual character that he introduces us to in his book. I don't have to know each individuals or their lives or what they are thinking, or why. Or where they are going in their daily routine and why. Liken to a river whose current is obstructed by too much debris.
1802523
The beginning was intriguing and fun. However, is quickly turned into a mind numbing amount of chaotic information. Her stories about herself and the promotion of her business seemed to take up the bulk of the book. It became hard to keep track of her own success story because her life anecdotes were randomly placed. It's too bad, because I felt she had a lot of good information if she had condensed it a bit and been more aware of times she shared things that she obviously didn't have enough experience or expertise in.
3563354
Accurate w/out getting bogged down w/repetitive detail.
3538397
The book is mainly concerned with excruciating details of ornamentation. It is way too detailed.
3538844
This story is too long, and too full of the characters agonizing over one thing or another. It got tedious.
4320932
Lots of detail, but also lots of wrong information and unchecked details.  Enough sloppy work to make me doubt what I read in this account.
1566890
Lots of talking ...unnecessary stretching of the subject. ...
111210
Not as well written and formulaic. A lot of recapping of background information
1261869
First off, let me say that by way of the information contained within this book, it is informative and adds to what is already known about the Oakland County Child Killer case. Unfortunately, the manner in which this information is presented is insufferably aggravating; the book is filled, on almost every single page, with atrocious grammatical errors. It took me nearly two weeks to read all 322 pages simply due to the headache-inducing way this book was written. Punctuation is either placed abruptly throughout sentences it should not be, or it is missing altogether. Quite often I found myself having to re-read many paragraphs just to make sure I understood what was being conveyed.

Errors aside, if you can indeed put them aside while reading, this book ultimately provides greater insight into the goings-on in the area where these murders occurred, thereby offering a better understanding of what may have truly taken place.
4684922
OVER WRITTEN...LOST ME WITH TOO WORDY WITH DETAILS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF GENERAL BACKGROUND DATA IN EVERY ITEM DICCUSSED OR BROUGHT INTO SCENE.
3737251
Too graphic, too many almost, too many choices made that were questionable.  Got really annoyed and bored with this book
2509492
There are way too many coincidences in this book. Even for this genre, it's too much. The way things all come together in the end is ridiculous. The book also should have been half its length. Morton went into way too much detail about leaves and grass and other things that were not relevant and that also were not literarily interesting.
159091
The author of this book apparently spent a vast amount of time tracking down every possible last slip of information about the disappearance of the USS Edsall, but then he tossed them all into the air as if so many pick up sticks and then he joined it all together without a thought to continuity, conclusions, coherence. He promises to set the record straight about a mysterious cover up and the actual facts of her disappearance, but after pages and pages of dense, incomprehensible facts compressed into unrelated paragraphs and pages, you are left still wondering what the hell he was talking about. I was determined to read the whole book just in case I missed some salient point, but regretfully the author never really establishes anything worth knowing. Save your money!

I have never read a more poorly written OR edited book than this one.
4421166
Repetitive stories, poor information and details...
1084077
Sometimes too much of a good thing is a bad thing. This is meticulously researched and often fascinating (the person who woke up the neighborhood because he was the only one who could invest in a watch) but it is withering in its detail. Not only is no stone unturned, but the stones are usually turned over three or four times. It's as if she were writing a text book for a course on which we'll be tested. The author's obsession with actually wearing the styles and using the soaps and not washing her hair is at first interesting but then a bit over-zealous, and finally obsessional. It may have been quicker to live through the Victorian Era than to read about it in this book.
2422609
Never did I think I would find a book that managed to both be so over complicated and simplistic at the same time. While this is ostensibly a book about the Hemmings family of Monticello, anyone reading it without knowing the title could be easily forgiven for thinking otherwise.

  This author uses droning and ceaseless historical commentary to compensate for a near complete dearth of accurate historical evidence and then, when a piece of evidence is finally avaliable, she spends 10 pages or more beating it relentlessly into the ground. For example, in the chapters involving Sally Hemming's stay in France the author spends great stretches explaining a diet and exercise regimen sally MIGHT have had for an illness she MIGHT have had, goes into a never-ending recital of  the French laws concerning slavery and engages in the most mind-numbing guesswork of motives when absolutely none were present.

  There is no information presented in this book that has not been stated elsewhere, in a better fashion. I was literally yelling at the pages at times with sheer frustration. The closest I can compare it to is a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine. A historian will spend hours discussing the motives of her sons, father and husband and laboriously attempt to pick through them to discern any possible role she had in them. Now imagine if the historian had equally little knowledge of her sons, father and husband as they have of Eleanor herself and you will roughly approach the problems within this book.

  Moreover, evenas a person of mixed white and black ancestry, I found the constant harping on the evils of slavery entirely excessive. This is a book of a slave family, not of slavery, but you could barely tell.

  The only possible good words I have for this book is that the author tried to expand on a topic not often covered in such detail.