if you tell – Pleasant Nights

Title: American Mother

Author: Gregg Olsen

Genre: true crime

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

I read If You Tell awhile ago and was gripped from the beginning. Not just because of the story, but the writing was excellent, as well. So, when I saw the author had a new true crime out, I was really excited to grab it from NetGalley. However, I just never connected with this one and found myself skimming toward the end.

From Goodreads: At 5.02 pm on June 5, 1986, an emergency call came into the local sheriff’s office in the small town of Auburn, Washington State. A distressed housewife, Stella Nickell, said her husband Bruce was having a seizure. Officers rushed to the Nickell’s mobile home, to find Stella standing frozen at the door… Bruce was on the floor fighting for his life.

As Stella became the beneficiary of over $175,000 in a life insurance pay-out, forensics discovered that Bruce had consumed painkillers laced with cyanide.

A week later, fifteen-year-old Hayley was getting ready for another school day. Her mom, Sue, called out ‘I love you’ before heading into the bathroom and moments later collapsed on the floor. Sue never regained consciousness, and the autopsy revealed she had been poisoned by cyanide tainted headache pills. Just like Bruce.

While a daughter grieved the sudden and devastating loss of her mother, a young woman, Cindy, was thinking about her own mom Stella. She thought about the years of neglect and abuse, the tangled web of secrets Stella had shared with her, and Cindy contemplated turning her mom into the FBI…

Gripping and heart-breaking, Gregg Olsen uncovers the shocking true story of a troubled family. He delves into a complex mother-daughter relationship rooted in mistrust and deception, and the journey of the sweet curly-haired little girl from Oregon whose fierce ambition to live the American Dream led her to make the ultimate betrayal.

I really love a great true crime story and have a solid addiction to the ID channel, but I was endlessly bored with this one. This one offered a lot of backstory that I was bored by, and when we get to the trial, many of those chapters are just trial transcriptions. Instead of having a truly evil killer, Stella, she was just obnoxious, selfish, and not all that bright. I rolled by eyes a lot at her. I can’t say I’ll recommend this to everyone, but to those who love true crime might connect with it in a way I didn’t.

If You Tell

Title: If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

Author: Gregg Olsen

Genre: True Crime

PopSugar Reading Challenge Prompt: A book from your TBR list chosen at random

I’ve read some pretty horrific stories in my life. The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum comes to mind. Although it’s fiction, it’s based on a true story. This book is extraordinarily difficult to read. Another rough book was one I read last year: The Road Out of Hell which was the true story of the Wineville Murders. But, I think this one takes the top prize of “Most Horrific.”

From Goodreads: After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle’s talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now.

For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined. Even as others were drawn into their mother’s dark and perverse web, the sisters found the strength and courage to escape an escalating nightmare that culminated in multiple murders.

Shelly Knotek is truly one of the worst people I’ve ever read about. The horrors she inflicted on the people in her house, family or otherwise, is just beyond terrifying. I was in shock reading about the atrocities she inflicted on those around her. And from what I’ve read, she has zero remorse. As much as I’ve read about serial killers, it seems like most either had a terrible childhood or have some sort of mental illness that leads them to a propensity for violence. Note: having a mental illness does NOT make a person more violent. But there are enough documented cases of serial killers with a mental illness, such as schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder.

Shelly Knotek didn’t have a terrible childhood. She had a bit of a rough start, but once she ended up in a stable home, she was loved and taken care of by parents who cared about her. But the second she stepped into their home, she was a difficult child. But enough people have difficult childhoods (look at her daughters, for example) and turn out just fine. I’m not going to diagnose a person based on one book, but she’s definitely missing any kind of empathy. She is cruel, manipulative, and downright evil. This book is a difficult book to stomach, knowing that it’s all true. But it was also a fascinating look into how people (her daughters) persevere and overcome.