(Part 2) Top products from r/SerialThunderDome

I loved it, but the reviews are terrible. I didn't actually know it was a King story when I read it. Maybe that is the difference, I wasn't expecting something like his other writings.

ETA--so in reading more about it, I found out it was specifically written to be a companion to the mini-series (which was terrible.) I still loved the diary portion. here is the link

I think I mostly agree with you. There are plenty of things I find maddening about this topic that are all variations on oversimplification:

• The inability to acknowledge that your personal experience is just that. Just because you would never xyz doesn’t make it unreasonable or unfathomable for someone else to. What might seem completely irrational to you could be perfectly natural to me. It does not make me wrong or you right. It means I’m not you and haven’t lived your life.
  
  
• Reducing the “characters” to black and white caricatures. No one is all bad or all good and not every act has to have meaning ascribed to it. OMG Adnan’s room was messy! OMG he lied about his sexual escapades! OMG he stole from the collection plate! None of these things have jack shit to do with the murder or indicate anything about his character. Likewise, the need to make him pure and good and dismiss anything shitty about him is equally annoying. I don’t think he was a malevolent psycho OR a golden child. He struck me as a typical teen, arrogant and insecure at the same time. Emotionally immature. Rebellious. I think it just scares some people to believe that a typical teenager is capable of murder. Others can’t accept that one can go through life being a perfectly normal person who commits a single terrible act.
  
  On that note, all the reverence for Hae is also bullshit. She was also a normal teenager, not a saint. That doesn’t make her murder any less tragic and certainly doesn’t mean she deserved it. Acknowledging her humanity isn’t disrespectful. These aren’t “characters,” they are people. This isn’t a story, this is life.
  
  
• Sometimes you just don’t know. It’s ok. No matter how many files you have read, how many pictures you have seen, how many posts you have written and read, how many episodes of Undisclosed you have listened to, you still know a lot less than you think you do.
  
  With all that being said, where you fall on this case is all about what information you choose to believe and what you choose to discard. You have to simplify to some extent, otherwise you'd never be able to come to a decision (exhibit A: me). I understand that. The problem is most people don't acknowledge that they are oversimplifying (although they really love to point it out when someone else is), and can't see that there are other ways to simplify.
  
  I got this book yesterday at the book festival and I think it is a must-read for Serial subbers.