This book discusses the case of Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, two middle school aged girls who lured their "friend" into the woods and attempted to murder her. The victim, Bella, was previously best friends with Morgan. She was targeted due to her friendship with Morgan. Bella was stabbed nineteen times, and very nearly lost her life due to the actions of these two girls. She somehow managed to find the strength to make it to the road, where a passing cyclist found her and immediately called for emergency services. The other two had promised her they would go get her help, but planned to leave her there to die and walk to some location where they supposedly believed Slenderman was waiting for them. I do not want to get into many details about the court case or sentencing for those who are unfamiliar with the case or want to read the book.

I have some hot takes about this, so if you do not wish to read them....scroll on to the end.

1. People often like to immediately blame the parents for things that their children do. Having been a child and teenager, I know for a fact that I got up to stuff that my parents did not know about....and still do not know about. That is often just a fact of life. There is a line between monitoring what your child does, parenting them, and being involved in their lives and being ultra-strict and stifling. Sometimes, that line can be difficult for parents to discern. Sometimes, parents pay no attention at all. I think it is unfair to place the blame for this solely on the parents, although I absolutely believe a HEALTHY, HEAPING DOSE of blame should be placed FIRMLY on the shoulders of Morgan's parents, which will be my next hot take point. People apart from the situation love to blame both Morgan and Anissa's parents, and also blame Bella's for allowing her to be friends with these others.

2. Morgan's parents are absolutely ridiculous. Her mother chose to enter into a relationship with a man who had schizophrenia, and then chose to procreate with him. Schizophrenia is a very difficult mental illness to deal with (which runs in my paternal side of the family, so I am very familiar with it). These two chose to have a child and then failed that child UTTERLY by not paying attention to the very clear signs that their child was exhibiting symptoms of the same illness as one of her parents. Her mother worked in healthcare, and her father suffered from the same thing. Between the two of them, they should have seen something and were living in a delulu world of denial. This girl could have gotten medication and mental health services TIME ago, quite likely preventing this crime from happening at all. While I think what Morgan did was horrible, I do feel bad for the suffering she must have endured throughout her life in dealing with untreated mental illness. Her parents need one of those shirts that say DELULU IS NOT THE SOLULU to wear every single day until the lesson sticks. They failed this kid.

3. The school system also failed Morgan, and thereby failed Bella. There were plenty of indicators that something was off with Morgan. She was once suspended and spoke with administration who shrugged off the little parade of red flags that were in front of them. People often like to blame school administrators and faculty for not doing enough or seeing enough, and I have fallen into that trap a little bit with this case, however, it would be very nice to have some serious training for school officials about mental health and warning signs about harmful behavior and such. I know that my kids' school system has an awful lot of in-service days for training and education, so they could surely come up with one for this. Kids spend a great percentage of the year at school, for a full working day. It would be very helpful if they were given tools to recognize serious issues to help be a team with parents and the community. (And probably also deserve more money for having to take that on, but that is another topic I have hot takes about.)

4. The criminal justice system and mental health facilities in the Unites States are LACKING. As a person who utilizes mental health services in this country, it is poor quality. People love to boast that the US is the greatest country on earth, which is laughable. The state of the criminal justice system alone makes that statement laughable. These two girls, Morgan, and Anissa, were incarcerated and given no intervention. It is not enough to slap people in cages and assume that cures their problems. There needs to be mental health services and education involved.

This is the end of my hot takes section.

I have the Audible version of this book, which is around 8 hours to listen to. I started it last night and finished it while I was at work today. The physical copy for those interested is just over 360 pages. I got this book after watching the documentary on HBO about the case, and hoped that it had more details, which it did. I do have a great deal of sympathy for the parents, families, and friends of all of the girls involved. People do not plan for things like this to happen, especially with children as young as these. I am sure that it is very difficult to have your young child be incarcerated or hospitalized and in recovery due to circumstances like this, and I tried to keep that in mind while reading this book, though I must admit it was difficult at times. There were several parts of this book that made me roll my eyes so hard they physically hurt, and I made a lot of faces about it as well. This was a complete fiasco from the word go, and gives several reminders about the need for mental health advocacy, services, monitoring what kids are doing online, and other things. Overall, the book was informative and if you are interested in the case, I would say that you would like this book.