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A review by siobhanward
The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman
sad
tense
slow-paced
3.0
This is a book where I struggled to give a rating because of how sad it was. It feels kind of wrong to rate something like this on a scale of 1-5.
That aside, this was decently well done. I loved how Weinman told Sally Horner’s story, it was human and heartbreaking. One of the problems with telling Horner’s story is how little information is available, particularly about what happened while she was with Frank LaSalle. However, Weinman addressed this well - she made it clear when she was speculating, rather than passing off her speculation as fact (which often happens in these books).
The thing that I found this book lacking was more context about the rest of the title - Lolita being a novel that “scandalized the world.” While there was a lot of context about Nabokov writing the book (to the point it got very repetitive), it’s release and scandal was pretty rushed, almost to the point of being glossed over. I think that if Lolita was scandalous enough that it’s referenced in the title, there should have been more context for it. While I agree that it was scandalous, I would have liked to see a bit more focus on that part.
I’m glad Weinman took the time to draw connections between the Horner case and Lolita, and the parts of the book devoted to Horner were well done, I just felt like there was a lot of repetition and not a ton of information in the parts about Lolita.
That aside, this was decently well done. I loved how Weinman told Sally Horner’s story, it was human and heartbreaking. One of the problems with telling Horner’s story is how little information is available, particularly about what happened while she was with Frank LaSalle. However, Weinman addressed this well - she made it clear when she was speculating, rather than passing off her speculation as fact (which often happens in these books).
The thing that I found this book lacking was more context about the rest of the title - Lolita being a novel that “scandalized the world.” While there was a lot of context about Nabokov writing the book (to the point it got very repetitive), it’s release and scandal was pretty rushed, almost to the point of being glossed over. I think that if Lolita was scandalous enough that it’s referenced in the title, there should have been more context for it. While I agree that it was scandalous, I would have liked to see a bit more focus on that part.
I’m glad Weinman took the time to draw connections between the Horner case and Lolita, and the parts of the book devoted to Horner were well done, I just felt like there was a lot of repetition and not a ton of information in the parts about Lolita.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Adult/minor relationship, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Child death and Rape