"Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge" Book Review

Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge by Jim Schutze
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Bobby Kent was a bully, —a steroid-pumped 20-year-old who dominated his peers in their comfortable, middle-class Ft. Lauderdale beach community through psychological, physical and sexual abuse. But on a summer night in 1993, Bobby was lured to the edge of the Florida everglades with a promise of sex and drugs. . .and was never seen alive again. The tormentor had become the victim in a bizarre and brutal act of vengeance carried out with ruthless efficiency and cold-blooded premeditation by seven of his high school acquaintances —including his lifelong best friend— and instigated by one overweight, underloved teenager who believed her life would be perfect. . .if only Bobby Kent were dead.

"BULLY is a riveting story of adolescent rage and bloody revenge—all the more harrowing and horrific because its true."

I found this a fast and engaging read, even though it is about a vicious murder. I can't feel entirely sympathetic with the victim, nor his murderers. He seems to have been a sociopath and the rest were not of a sound and reasonable mind. It's obvious from every move they made that they were not responsible adults, instead their parents just let them do whatever they wanted and paid their bills. I am disgusted with the parents a lot more than the actual 'kids' involved in the murder. They should've put their foot down at some point, much earlier than this sad story begins.

*SPOILERS*

I do feel bad, to a certain extent, for what they went through before Bobby's murder. But they could've gone to the police and asked for help. The one girl was raped, but with her past it may have been hard to convince anyone that it was a rape. But then, she could've at least stayed away from him. I think the other girl should've just left Marty and Bobby, and never went back. Marty could've done any number of things - gone back to school somewhere else, joined the army - but he didn't even look into it. Murder should've been the last thing on their minds. Especially with the way they went about it. They told nearly everyone they met on the street that they had killed somebody and that's like the first thing you shouldn't be doing.

I had a bit of a problem concerning the way the author wrote this book. I'm more of a factual person, I read a lot of biographies, histories, and the like. Sometimes I watch true crime shows and that's where my interest in the book stemmed from. In the beginning, there was a pointless part about a teenage prostitution ring, but you didn't really need to know any of the people involved.  It would've been easier to mention that the girl was a part of one at one time and leave it at that. Also, the author acted as if he had been a fly on the wall during the discussions the murderers had before the murder. It was a novelistic speculation of what had happened, which, while good and exciting reading, was a bit irksome to me, because it was speculation and not entirely truthful. Also, I didn't like how the relationship between Marty and Bobby was represented in the beginning. That whole gay-but-not-gay thing that they supposedly did. I'm not sure if it should be in the book or not.

The perspective I wanted to see the most was from Bobby Kent's parents and family. And that was sorely lacking. It was their son who had been murdered and their lives had been changed forever. I also wanted to see how his relationship with his family was and that was barely in there. Those other families, who can't see what idiots they raised, can still see their dumb kids. Most of them are already out on parole.

The ending was rather depressing. These people and their families will seemingly never understand what they did. And after reading a recent interview with one of the murderers, I think I'm right. (The video doesn't work.)

Otherwise, I found it a fascinating and well written read, barely a grammatical or editorial error. The movie is on my to-watch list, although I have doubts that they could make an interesting dialogue between these people, with their "likes" and their "cools" being so much a part of their conversation.

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I give this book 3 out of 5 books.