Memoir of a serial killer's daughter.
My Thoughts
Melissa Moore's father, Keith Jesperson, was known as the "Happy Face" killer. He wrote his own book called "I" The Creation of a Serial Killer, which I may have to read.
I thought Moore's book was just okay. I love true crime books, so the title interested me, but mostly she tells about her life growing up. Her dad did kill some cats, and she related these awful memories of him doing so, and she also told of inappropriate things he said to her, but for the most part her dad was not a vicious, mean, abusive father. After her parents divorced, her mother moved her and her siblings around many times and she had to switch schools. Her father made a point to stay in the kids' lives, and her siblings looked forward to his fun visits where he took the kids to buy things and played with them by throwing them over his shoulder and carrying them around like dads do. Melissa claims she was afraid of her father, but not for a specific reason. She said she just didn't trust him. He never physically abused or molested his children.
While Melissa was in high school, her father was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend and subsequently admitted to killing seven other people between 1990 and 1995. He was sentenced to three consecutive life terms.
Again, the book was just okay. I read it in two days and it held my attention, but I've read a lot of true crime books and it wasn't that exciting. I hate to put it like that because, after all, her father really was a serial killer and that is awful! Her growing up years were not great because her parents were divorced, they didn't have a lot of money, her mother married a deaf man with anger issues, Moore had to switch schools a couple of times, but I'm not sure it was worth writing a book. After reading "A Child Called It", nothing compares to the treatment Dave Pelzer endured as a child.
I am curious to read her father's version.
Do I Recommend?
Probably not.
Source
Library
My Rating
3/5
Other reviews
8 comments:
I will probably pass on this one. I agree, I don't think I have read anything like A Child Called It.
I wasn't able to even finish the book. I think she should have told her story but allowed someone else to write it maybe.
I thought it was a great essay for a young kid kind of read.
I was truly intrigued and excited to read it also, finally I gave it away.
It really sounds like a miss. While the title/premise sounds like a hit for a true crime lover, what you relay doesn't seem like it gave any indication that her upbringing was any different than many of us.
Maybe she was trying to reach some sort of personal catharsis with it? I can imagine just the fact of being his child must be, I am not even sure what word to use here, nightmarish?
Nise': Good idea, you won't be missing anything :)
MarceJ: I agree; it was a good "essay" for a younger person read. I was interested in it enough to want to see what happens, but I already knew that her father was a serial killer, so I'm not sure what exactly I was waiting for! I guess I just wanted it to get more exciting.
Gwen: You hit the nail on the head. I can't say her childhood was like the rest of us, exactly, because her father was definitely "off," but I guarantee there are many people out there who have had worse.
It must be really horrifying to have a father like that and then to record those growing years trying to look at him from a different perspective. This sounds like an interesting book, too bad it didn't work out as well. It's annoying when books do that.
Thanks for the review, might pass on this one.
You would think she would spend more time focusing on the murders, but I guess as a daughter she'd just be trying to work through her childhood and understand and tie together anything from that time that related to how he acted.
I read this last year and felt the same way you did. I was disappointed with the book.
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