You probably remember the "Slenderman murders", right? Back in 2014, two 12-year-old girls stabbed their friend and said that Slenderman, a fictitious horror character from the internet, told them to do it. But what you probably don't remember or even know is what happened after the attempted killing. That's right. The victim lived, and most people don't know that! In her non-fiction book Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls, journalist Kathleen Hale shows readers what really happened that May day in 2014 and what happened to all three girls in the aftermath.
Like most people, I remember reading about the Slenderman crime, but I never followed the trials (which took place three years after the crime) or what happened to the 12-year-old victim, Bella. This book takes you from pre-2014 to 2021, showing you not just each girl's family background but what life was like for them in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The author, who grew up 30 minutes away, is able to insert her knowledge of Wisconsin life into the story without inserting herself.
I think this would make a great book club discussion. It raises lots of questions about the law and mental illness. It's a sad story, not only because of the crime that was committed but also because of the way the Wisconsin judicial system treated the two offenders. When you hear about some of the weird Wisconsin laws and read one man's opinion that people with mental illness should be kept off the streets, it will make you roll your eyes and get angry.
Both offenders, Morgan and Anissa, were let down by all the adults in their lives: parents, teachers, doctors, lawyers. If anyone had been paying attention and getting these girls the help they needed, perhaps this crime would not have happened. For me, this book was a wake-up call to normalize talking about mental illness.
Slenderman is published by Grove Press and is available on bookstore shelves now. I received a free review copy.
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